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My goal was to come face-to-face with myself and my indecisiveness. Although I know that I can’t help myself choose just by writing it down, it’s a good way to voice it out privately. I’m proud of my reflection, as I felt like I could be truthful to myself. It made me more self-aware of my feelings towards specific things, and hopefully being able to assess that normally can help me in the future.

Another day, another awful drawing. One by one, another page is flipped, or thrown away depending on my mood. I tell myself to just give up, but my ambition says otherwise. Despite my negative thoughts, I chose not to put my pencil down. My hand was cramping and as much as I wanted to continue, I had to put the pencil down. After stretching my hand for a good three minutes, I picked up my pencil once more. Once I started to write, my hand cramped again.

I had a good two weeks before school started, but that was the least of my worries. I wanted to get this drawing done. After erasing many times, I thought the image was done for. So as a way to hide my embarrassment, I called it a “draft”. Four trapezoids, two of them facing towards each other and the other two facing away. Each had a different sketch inside of them. The day before, my cousin had asked me to just draw a logo of our favorite boy group, but I decided to add onto it.

I was somewhat proud of the first trapezoid, which had four different circles, each one representing a different story. One looked like it was melting, another looked like a feather. One was covered in stripes, but each line was never a match to the other. The final circle was simply black, as the original album cover had, I tried my best to recreate it, and I believe that I did it to the best of my ability. I was finished that part, but I never got to finish the other three trapezoids. I had done the rough sketches, but I never got to shading them in.

I knew sketching wasn’t something I wanted to pursue as a career…do I? I truly am not sure at this point. I do prefer to stick with the art department, I just never knew which category I wanted to stick to. Everyone has their own paths chosen, why can’t I choose mine? Of course everyone has a specific talent, everyone but me. I try to do anything I can but I feel as though I fail miserably. I have the greatest ideas in mind, but it seems like time has other plans for me. I can never get them done, and most times I barely get to start them.

Although all of these mishaps, I am determined to figure out what I want to do, and how to get them under control. I am the only one who knows what I want, but do I really? I know what I can and cannot do, but how can I use that knowledge to benefit me? Does anyone know what they want, honestly? I am like a tangled pair of earbuds, once I get things back on track, they somehow get jumbled up once more as soon as I turn my back away,

The main goal of my essay was to be able to be open and share something that is very important to me. I wanted to be able to make people step back and become aware of everything and everyone that they have. One thing that I am very proud of in the essay is how I was able to be very transparent and write about a time in my life that was really hard. One way I would like to improve my writing technique is by expanding my vocabulary and figuring out how to not repeat the same words over and over again.

My mom had just left the house not even two minutes ago, yet there she was, banging on our front door. I peered out of our front window, remembering all the things my parents had told me about opening the door for strangers. Pressing my nose up on the glass, as my warm breath began to fog it, I saw my mom, standing on our front steps with her hand in her hair, tears dripping down her face, shaking ever so slightly. I watched her struggle with her keys, hearing the faint jingle through the window. I leaped up and ran to open the door, confused as to what had happened. As I unlatched our lock and opened the door, watching as the light from outside flooded the living room, I saw the flashing ambulance lights across the street. Time felt like it was moving in slow motion. A million thoughts went through my mind, one after the other; my mind racing so intensely that I could barely breathe. My mom, still trembling, walked into the house, and as she tried to pull herself together, uttered, “he had a heart attack.” Not sure how to respond, I asked if he would be alright. That’s when she told me the ambulance didn’t make it in time. He was gone before the paramedics got there. He was breathing one minute, and the next, he was gone. We had just had dinner with him a few nights ago. How could he be gone in such a short amount of time? He was just here. Alive. Healthy. Breathing. Within minutes, his life was taken. His voice never to be heard again, and the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor was only a faint memory.

I never realized something like this could happen so close to home. You hear about these stories on T.V., but you never expect them to happen to you, and when they do, they are heart-wrenching. Seeing my brother’s friend lose a dad at such a young age is an image that is planted in my mind that I will never be able to get rid of. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and heartache they felt and still feel. A whole piece of their family puzzle has been taken away, never to be returned. A family is not complete when such an important figure is taken from a family. My brother’s friend went to bed the night before, expecting to wake up and live another typical day, but instead, he lost his father. The father who raised him, cared for him, and loved him. Not only did their family lose someone very important, but our community did as well. He was one of the most influential and active members of our community and losing him impacted us all. I’ll never forget everything he did for my family, and I wish more than anything that he didn’t have to go. I don’t even remember the last thing I said to him, because I didn’t think it’d be the last time I’d speak with him. You never expect the last time to be the last time. I can’t remember what his voice sounded like or how he laughed. It’s the little things that seem so small when someone’s alive, that are most important when they’re dead.

I think of all the times I fight with my parents or don’t fully appreciate everything they do for me, and sometimes I think of what would happen if they died a few minutes later? What would happen if we fought and then my mom went to the store and got into a car accident? I would be crushed and I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself. It’s normal to fight and bicker, but it’s also so important to never leave angry, or go to bed mad because you never know when it’s going to be someone’s last day. Too often, people fail to appreciate certain things in their life; whether it’s family or food, there is a lack of gratitude. When someone is given so much, they often take many things for granted and if they suddenly lose the people and things they once took for granted, then they live with that burden for the rest of their life. Life is constantly busy and stressful, however, it’s important to sometimes take a step back to realize and appreciate everything that you have, because there are so many amazing things in life that you don’t realize you have until their gone.

Introduction: When drafting this essay, I wanted to portray my sickness using detail that was true to my personal experience. I’m proud of the way that I described how automatic eating tendencies become after you begin dieting. On my next paper, I want to make more of an effort to get good peer revision. I got two people to look over my paper, but I could have gotten a better paper if I reached out to more people.

I rarely visit my grandparents in West Virginia. The grueling eight-hour car drive made it difficult to reach them, but in the summer before sophomore year my family decided to drive out and stay with them for a few days. I was thrilled! I would be staying somewhere quite different than Philadelphia with family that I rarely see. Although, part of me also dreaded this visit. It had been a few months since I began my diet; and I remember shoving down any excitement I had with calculation - how would I avoid too excess calories in West Virginia? Before leaving, I had to promise myself I would not overeat and surely damage the progress I had been making. I had internalized information from the health accounts of social media and created a mental manifesto on which foods I would avoid, but truly, how I would avoid eating altogether.

It was always very quiet in West Virginia. In the gloaming hours, I would lie in bed and try to fall asleep. Distantly, I heard crickets as they spent those halcyon hours in reverie. I would eventually drift off into sleep, mildly uneasy in the fact that I was not falling asleep in my bed; I was surrounded by the sprawling Blue Ridge Mountains, and I was sleeping in a guest bedroom that was twice the size of my own, and it was very quiet. In the morning I would drink coffee with my grandparents; They would offer many sweet and tempting items for breakfast, but I would always cry indigestion and stick with the coffee.

When we returned from West Virginia, the habits that I picked up over the summer became automatic, a sort of body memory that occurred when my health tendencies took over my life. I continued downing black coffee even though it tasted like death. I took up doing sit-ups in my room.

I had almost forgotten that school was imminent by the time August was ending. I went into school on the first day with dread that was mildly pacified by how exhausted I felt, and as friends greeted me with such vibrant energy, I realized how different I must be acting compared to everyone else. I didn’t know whether or not people would comment on my weight loss and was surprised to have had many people walk up to me to make comments.

“You got so skinny! Congratulations!” Is how most people reacted if they chose to verbalize their thoughts about the change.

“Something’s different about you, did you lose weight?” One teacher said, in a manner that surely wasn’t meant to be intrusive.

I reacted to all of the comments with humility; I told most people that I had naturally shed ‘a few pounds’ from biking all around the city. It was a lie, but it felt like the easiest way to explain the change. Even though people were confronting me on my weight loss, none of their observations affected me. I was the only one who could feed into my body image. I had become immune to whatever anyone could have said about my body; I had become the mule.

Advanced Essay #1: FEAR

By: Caresten Lyn’ae Moses

My goals for this essay was to tell about how my fears affected me and to let the readers know that it is okay to have fears, as long as you try to get over them. I am proud that I was able to share my experiences with fear. I’m glad that I was able to give vivid details of my fears along with my feelings. If I was to improve my writing, I would plan out what I want to do and then I would have a better idea of what I want to write about and ideas could flow more freely.

Fear is a part of you and me. It’s apart of growing up. Whether it’s fear of dogs to heights, to asking a certain question, we all have fears. Having fears is totally normal. It’s about how you overcome those fears. In life, you can’t run from your problems or fears. You have to toughen up, muster up the courage and face your fears. It is one of the scariest things to do, but once you finally conquer your fear, you feel unstoppable and it easily turns into the greatest feeling. I know. I have been fearful of things in my life, and I felt stuck until I just needed that extra push or a sign to tell me to just face it.

I felt the push of a familiar big hand. There I was. Every step feeling so heavy. The music was loud and the lights were hot. As I stepped out onto the stage, I looked forward into the audience. I couldn’t focus on one face. As I looked further into the crowd, I saw the bright, blinding lights from cell phones filming. I then looked to the side of me when I saw the other girls in their pink sequin covered leotards and tutus. I saw the bright, blinding lights from cell phones filming. In this moment, I looked to the side of me into the wing of the stage. I saw my teacher counting off for us to start. I saw her mouth say, “5, 6, 7, 8.” I remembered why I was there in the first place. I glanced down at my arms that had goosebumps on them. I get the same cold, terrified, stiffening feeling every time I get on stage. It was time. My feet started gliding across the floor and I started to flow through the dance routine. I remembered to smile and show personality— To go full out on my movements and to keep going if I messed up. All these things the dancer teachers tell you to remember to do while dancing. It was so difficult to do all of that while dancing though. I was almost finished the dance, and my mini solo part was approaching. I remember my transition. The swift movement I had to do to get to my spot. I did it. I really did!

Dancing in my room when nobody is watching is so much different than performing in front of hundreds of people who are watching your every move. Fear is what held me back for so long. Once I finally got over that fear it all started coming together and things were easier. Fear seems so hard to overcome when you are older. Every little thing is frightening.

As I got into the car, I immediately popped in my headphones and shut the world out. I knew my parents wanted to ask me a thousand and one questions, but I didn’t care. I listened to my music and scrolled on Instagram until I fell asleep. I knew the ride home was going to be a long one. Since I was a small child, there was always something about the bumping and stopping and vibrations from the car that I enjoyed so much. As I laid my whole body across the cold leather seat, I drifted off to sleep. All of a sudden I was in a room. A dark, stale, cold, small room. This room was unusual. I tried to stand up but my head hit the ceiling. I must be trapped in a box, I thought. No. How did I get here? I heard a scratching noise. I turned behind me and it stopped. I looked forward again, and the noise continued. Suddenly, there was a small light. I could see a large hand with red gloves holding a lighter. I looked in the back of the lighter and saw a white painted face with a red painted smile. OH My GOD. CLOWNS IN THE DARK. Those were my two biggest fears. This really couldn’t be happening. I was shaking. Finally, I said this has to stop. I pushed the clown into the wall and shouted, “I’m not afraid of you!” The sight of the clown faded away and I woke up.

There’s always been something about dreams that make them seem so wickedly real. When I have a good dream that’s never a problem but I have a nightmare it’s the scariest thing. Fear is just a temporary thing. What I’ve learned throughout my 16 years of life is that if you don’t face your fears, you will be stuck thinking you can’t get passed them. Fears will hold you back forever, restricting you from accomplishing your goals. It is extremely necessary to muster up the strength and courage to face your fears head on.

Introduction: My goals for this essay was to convey my story of change. I wanted to pass on the message that change is never easy, and there will always be challenges ahead. But with every challenge, every obstacle, I will grow and learn to know life a little better. I am proud that I remembered so many details from Toronto, so that I could write about it and make it entertaining. I am proud of the way I wrote my essay and I was pretty strict with myself while writing, I wanted there to be a specific tone. I wish I could have more space to write even more about how Philadelphia has changed me to this day. I wrote more in the past tense, about how I felt in the past moments.

Finding Me:

It was a Tuesday morning during 3rd grade at Blake Public Middle School, right outside of downtown Toronto. All morning, we have been working on “Me Posters!”, all the other 20 students and I had to brainstorm, write, and decorate a poster that would reveal who we are at age 9. Joshua was writing about playing basketball everyday, and Joanne wrote about how she loves medicine and her passion in becoming a doctor. I don’t know what passion is, I don’t play sports or instruments, my life is boring. I sat there for an hour looking at my blank poster before Ms. Barr came to ask, “Annie, why haven’t you started your poster?” In which, I exclaimed, “My life is boring, I’m boring, I don’t know anything about myself. I’m no fun.” “Everyone has their own story Annie, and they are all unique in their own way. You’re not boring, you are always smiling, always kind, and you love to make people laugh. People always change, try new things, and become new people.” So I did what I could with my poster, I drew the places I would go to. I paid close attention to what I was doing on a daily basis, how I interact with people, and I was more than ever aware of my words. But still, I was only 9 years old. So I hadn’t taken anything seriously yet.

Trying to find yourself at any age can be very challenging. And most times, everyone is always changing, like Ms. Barr said, whether it be minimal or drastic. Changes in a person can be a result of many factors. One of those factors is the environment of the person. It becomes the people a person interacts with daily, the places the person adventures to, the media, and of course, the person itself. While I was in Toronto, I had a few friends. Luckily for me, my school was very diverse. I was exposed to different types of people at a young age, which opened my eyes about people in general. I had two best friends, Zoolnad and Azka. Zoolnad was Pakistani, and she was always the prettiest girl. Her mom always made the best Chicken Biryani. Azka was Indian, Azka and I lived close to each other so I would try to go over to her house. In which my only guardian, my grandma refused. Azka was a lot darker than Zoolnad was. Here’s the thing, most traditional older Asian people tend to be racist. “You never know what they could do to you, I am only doing this for your safety. Those types of people are scary, dirty and dangerous,” my grandmom always said Pretty soon, I submitted to her ideas, and Azka was gone.

Up until leaving Toronto entirely, I lived there for almost three years. I was 12 when I left. What I knew about myself was: I was a tomboy, I loved riding scooters, I laughed at everything, and would cry about anything, I was still boring. All those things about myself weren’t relevant to me. To be honest, I was scared about the future, I lived in constant fear that I would never be able to live with my parents. So when I was on the steady 14-hour bus ride to the city of brotherly love, I was incredibly excited.

I arrived in Philadelphia on June 13th, 2012. The first day of 4th grade was rough, I had bowl cut bangs, deep dimples, and my Cinderella backpack. The Cinderella backpack was not my idea, the worker at target said that every girl has it, so I should get one too. I realized how much I missed my friends in Toronto. I had never seen so many white kids than I did in class that day. Everything seemed so dull and sad. The kids were not nice, but they had made fun of me because of my haircut. It was the first time someone made a mean comment about me. I cried about it when I ventured back home. My parents were at work until 8:30 pm, so I barely got to see them. I would fake a smile for them.This was the first time I truly felt sadness. I dreaded going to school the next day. For two years, I hated my life. “You’ll get used to it” was not the case for me. I was homesick in my new home.

Towards the end of 5th grade, I grew out my bangs, and started shopping at a store called Justice and Forever 21, no more WalMart clothes. I felt not like me, but change is necessary. After a couple of months, kids at school were being friendly to me. They started talking to me outside of school, and then came my new best friend, Allie. She was white, the popular girl and perfect for me. We had the best time ever, we would Oovoo each other everyday afterschool. Allie and I did a lot of things together and pretty soon, I adapted her talking language, her sense of fashion and I even decorated my room like hers. It was the new me.

All of that was physical though, as I got older, my mindset changed. I was very observant of my surroundings, I noticed the number of homeless people on the street, I noticed the number of times I got catcalled at age 13, I noticed the sadness and depression in a stranger’s eyes. Not everyone would be happy, and most times, people are miserable. For the first time in my life, I saw the bad, the ugly, it wasn’t playgrounds, sunshine and rainbows. I started doing things so that people would like me more, and sometimes I still do this. It was something I had never done in Toronto.

I didn’t realize I was changing, nobody really ever does. It becomes a self reflection thing. I heard many more mean comments, bought things to please society, wasted time on people didn’t deserve it, try new things, liked it, didn’t like it. It’s all apart of life and I would never regret any of it. Transitioning into a new society can be very difficult for anyone, it causes unwanted and wanted change. Philadelphia and Toronto are both big cities with millions of people. There as many differences as there are similarities. I learned so much about myself in both cities. I am not sure where life will take me in the future, but I will always be Annie.

Introduction; When writing this essay, it took a couple of tries until I found a topic that actually came from me. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write about the time when I visited Mexico for the first time, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted the takeaway to be. For the second scene, I found myself lost, now knowing how to connect my ideas, but then something clicked in my head I knew I could write about when I got chosen to go to Ecuador in 7th grade. I knew that many people don’t get the chance to travel, let alone so young and both of those trips were unlike and similar in many ways. Life in Central America was very unlike our day to day in the U.S. I felt proud being able to share my experiences in this essay, because I got to tell a little about my origins and my thoughts on life. One way I would like to improve my writing technique is to use more sensory details, like I tried doing in this essay, but also being able to describe what I’m thinking at the time and paint the setting for the reader.

As I stepped my first foot onto the Motherland, it felt known but new. Then both a woman and man of similar complexion to mine greeted us saying, “Bienvenidos” I do a slight smirk and greet them back accordingly. My heart raced, as I’ve been told from stories to stay on high alert, my mother said numerous times before I left, ” When you arrive talk to no one except the people you know, the police can’t even be trusted at times.” Mexico has one of the highest crime rates in Latin America.I always observed my surroundings for any alarming behavior. I walked slowly letting everyone lead the way, greeting everyone with just an ever so slightly smirk, never speaking. I continued to follow the crowd out to the luggage claim, identifying my bright pink suitcase from across the room, still always being on the lookout. I struggled to carry all my belongings as if I was going away for months when in reality it was only 2 weeks. As I walked across the ceiling high revolving doors, I felt my face light up as I spotted my family from the end of the hall, I rushed with open arms rushing into theirs, struggling to run with all my luggage. I yelled, “Abuelitos!” My heart felt at home again. They continued to ask me endless questions on how my trip was, as we made our way “home”. I crowded onto the backseat of the car with all my luggage, my eyes glued to the window not knowing where to look, I couldn’t believe it I was finally here, the place I’ve heard about my whole life, where my parents had grown up. Everything wasn’t so magical as we passed tall skyscrapers, apartments, federal buildings, city houses and a zoo. I couldn’t help but notice the same thing at every corner children on the streets selling bracelets, candies, cd’s and food. These children should be in school but instead their out on the streets day and night for some spare change just to survive. As we continued on our way to Puebla, roughly a 2 hour drive. I noticed as we got closer no skyscrapers, no apartments, no city houses, all you saw for miles was green and for as far as you can look that’s all you saw, but there was one thing right in the center, Iztaccihuatl the sleeping lady, an inactive volcano . Having heard so many stories about this volcano it made it seem as if I was just seeing it once more. The uneven dirt roads led to the main streets, houses parallel to each other, each house labeled with name tags. The boys played soccer with each other, barefoot. Women coming home from the market holding the groceries on their heads heading home. This places was unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Then a year later, a letter arrived at my house saying, “ Hillary Hernandez you have been one of the chosen students to go to Ecuador,” my dad read out loud. I yelled with excitement, I couldn’t believe it in a couple months I would be traveling to a different continent with 13 of my classmates. Then the day came, I didn’t know how to feel I was feeling a rush of different emotions, I was ecstatic that I had gotten this extraordinary opportunity but frantic at the same time. I was going into this new environment and culture I knew nothing of. As we said goodbye to our parents, tears started to run down my face, for a slight second I thought about just going back with them and not going anymore, but I knew that wasn’t an option. After a lengthy 9 hour flight, we landed in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. We boarded onto a bus to the hostel, house lights we’re the only thing leading the way at 3am. My head rocked back and forth as I forced myself to stay awake, but ended up caving, since I hadn’t slept the whole flight. My anxiety kept me up watching endless movies. On the first day, we visited an orphanage on the slum part of Quito. I couldn’t help but notice that Quito had a lot of similarities to Mexico, kids sold candies on the street and washed cars windows for some spare change. I didn’t know how these kids would react to foreigners coming in, but all we wanted was to bring them joy with gifts and volunteer work. The first girl I had met there was a 14 year girl named Isabell, she told me her story about being raped by her stepfather and getting kicked out of her house then for a while she was living on the streets before getting taken in by the orphanage. I felt the tears go down my face with such frustration and empathy, but here stood this girl in front of me telling me her story with no emotion, as if she was used to it or it was her fault. The sad thing is that she wasn’t the only one with a similar story. When I look back at my time I spent in both Mexico and Ecuador, and I see the struggle of the corrupted system and I praise my parents for their sacrifice and courage on how much my parents had to go through, just to get to where they are today. They grew up with absolutely nothing back home and they had to come to a foreign land as a necessity for a better future one back home couldn’t offer. They’ve taught me that money isn’t everything, that when their grandmother couldn’t buy them something she would just make it and that made her cherish is 100x more. My experiences in both of these countries made me realize that I look selfish for taking for granted even the smallest things like having a roof to live under or having an education and food on the table every day.I look around and realize that not just me but us as a society take things for granted everyday or make fun of those who don’t have as much as us. That we are always eager to post our newest stuff and show them off. That if he has 10 pairs of shoes, I need 20 pairs. That we all just feel like we have to be superior to the other.
These experiences at such a young age, made me look at the world differently because whenever I want more and more, I think back to all those kids who might not have a small percentage of what I have. Although there are times when I don’t go by this, I hope that as I get older I become more and more grateful for my parents sacrifice and to be grateful for what I have and not distressed for what I don’t

INTRODUCTION

In my essay, I tackle the idea of living in the now. My goal for my essay was to enlighten people on how important and impactful small moments can be. How we should appreciate what we have in front of us because nothing is a given. I am proud of the work I did to make it clear and elaborate with the help of my peer editors. For my next Essay, I want to make sure that I have multiple people look at my essay so that I can get a lot of feedback and advice.

LIVING IN THE PRESENT

by Nile Shareef-Trudeau

I’m alive!

This is about recognizing all the blessings that are right in front of me. All the blessings that I pass up because of the toxic conditioning I have as an American. Unlike many people around the world, the way my country is set up has made me think I have all the time in the world. An infinity of tomorrows. Because of this, I take so much for granted. I’ve felt so sure that tomorrow will come. I stay stuck in times past or fantasies of the future. Instead of living; appreciating each day as the amazing blessing that it is.

There’s a recurring event that happens at least once a day in a nook known as my room. A feeling of anticipation of what’s to come, from sounds so familiar yet mysterious. Two little feet, size twelve in kids, traveling up my staircase. I await all the possibilities. At times these feet are loud and clunky, at others slow and creeping. From these two sounds, I can tell who it is. The seven-year-old stinker of a sister I love so dearly. The incredible and loving little Lama of mine.

I can’t count all the times I’ve been annoyed when she comes up my stairs. I often didn’t care about the magical things, thoughts, and ideas she had to offer. I had sunglasses that covered the light that she radiated when she came into my room without even realizing it.

Though this event passed for small and insignificant, with my new realizations, it provides me with an opportunity to instead soak in and savor every moment of it. I could count each step it takes for her to reach me. Hear the clicking her tongue makes as she speaks. Feel how my heart warms in her presence, each little thing she does. Looking at her in a gaze of amazement, taking in all that she is. Her soul stands personified in front of me, and I’m in love with it.

Little moments are often overlooked but it is in these moments that we feel the most. Many people don’t appreciate these moments as much as they should. In these moments it can be hard to be completely present. However, if you can get there you truly feel alive. You experience raw cut emotions of realization. I am living right now, in this moment. I’m feeling, seeing, hearing. Each moment of life is a blessing and it should be understood/treated as such.

I went through a rough patch last year where I was sucked into a tornado of negative emotions. I chose to cut my hair as a release.

I felt a twinkle of insanity; an uncontrollable excitement rushed over me as I gripped the scissors in my hand. Cutting away my luscious lion mane and knowing feelings of rebirth and self-empowerment. “I feel a heavy weight lifting,” I said to my sister Lotus on the other side of the call. All the shadows my hair cast on my shoulders and nape of my neck being shown to the light. Now with all I’ve uncovered about myself, I can move forward. I wanted so badly to move on from this state of being. Growth is all I was looking for, so I cut my hair off. In that moment I allowed myself to feel. To take a chance. Brushing past all the thoughts that tried to tell me I would regret my decision. Not knowing what the outcome would be but not caring because if not now, when?

As American people, we are programmed to walk through life looking for a bigger picture. We are constantly thinking about the future. We wonder and work to figure out how we will harness it. With this being said, we miss out on all the important things: the nows. By being stuck on the future and dwelling on the past, we miss out on exploring, enjoying, and exercising the present moment. To do things just because: like examining details of a drawing; A simple creation from my mind: how the drawing on my wall consists of a hand, but this hand specifically is a left hand. That of which is gripping a small book with its pudgy fingers. These things often seem insignificant. Some may say, “Why would I sit around and look at the junk in my room?” What people don’t understand is by doing these things we begin to live in a world so real. Getting to know the present moment. Tomorrow isn’t certain, and the past is said and done. This is what it’s all about. Putting in the work to evaluate things we can change that are right in front of us. Rather than looking for things that are no longer in our grasp. Not to mention, we begin to get rid of this idea that life is boring but instead fascinating. With each moment and thing a new adventure. Then, and only then, will you be living your life in color.

Hi, my name is Christopher Jacobs; my goals for this essay were to describe my theme and explore the personal struggles that I have had, and the struggles that I and others go through. My theme was complicated but also simple due to it being very versatile in how you could explain it, but I decided to make my main focus something I am really passionate about, sports. I wanted to tell about my experiences with my self doubt while playing and how much it affects me on and off the court. I am proud of how descriptive I was and how I really let myself go and let myself be vulnerable here. I took a lot of notice off my classmates work that helped give me a better idea of what I should write. I would use my time a little bit better next time and plan out each scene better if I could do this again though.

All my life I have been told that I wasn’t good enough, that I won’t do good at this sport or that I don’t deserve my “gift” of height or that no one needs me on their team.  Well, for a while I believed them, my self-esteem was killed and even now I still don’t believe in myself when it comes to any sport I play. But no matter what, no matter how much I don’t believe in myself, no matter how many times I doubt myself I always persevere and I always pushed through. You see when I was younger I always told myself that no matter what everyone else said or what my mind itself said, that I would keep going, keep pushing, keep persevering and never give up. 

I remember getting up that day and looking outside my window and sighing as I remembered the big game later today and how without most of our players I will most likely be forced to play way out my comfort zone and most likely, and just thinking about this gave me anxiety levels that ached and plagued my mind. I quickly erased all of those negative thoughts and went about my normal routine before grabbing my gear for my game later on. I went and grabbed my gear and headed out. 

When I got to the game I felt extremely nervous more so than I did anytime earlier and felt as if the world had its eyes on me and the nervousness built up inside me like a volcano dormant for years suddenly becoming active with fears I never knew I had before. I felt like an emotionally derailed train and was feeling so many negative emotions in me that I didn’t even notice the amount of time I held my breath as I put my hand on the door handle. I thought as I took a deep breath, “I could simply not come, I could call in sick or fake an injury or just go home couldn’t I.” I took my hand off that door handle and was about to turn back and hop onto the bus home before I stopped in my tracks and thought to myself. “Chris, you can’t do this to your team, they need you right now, we are down so many players and this would be extremely selfish, and it would go against your own morals.” I sat there for what felt like forever having an internal turmoil, before I sucked it up before grabbing that door and walking inside to be greeted by the sounds of screeching feet and a basketball game, I smiled and took a deep breath, relieving the stress off my shoulders before walking over to my teammates gathered together and joining them to do the most important ballgame of my life up to this point.

    When I first started playing football, I hated it, I absolutely hated it, it was a sport I had never played before, a sport I was never interested in watching, and especially the fact that it was a contact sport my dad forced me to do instead of letting me play basketball made it worse. I was always the kid who was out of place while I was there, the kid who would get pushed around by everyone else at practice, and never even got to play in any games. My coach sat me out all the time saying the same excuse, “You're not ready yet.” I remember it was 4 games where I was reduced to sitting on the sideline as a water boy while my teammates went and played their hearts out. I hated every second of it, it had kept killing my self-esteem and each time I had to sit out, my morale to keep pushing and persevering would just deplete even more over and over till I felt empty, till I felt like a black hole constantly being sucked in together with no escape. Then I remember the day my coach said that I could finally play, I felt so excited but so nervous at the same time, I was scared, scared that I would have wasted the hours of training and ruin my opportunity. But I did what I had to, I put on my pads, put my jersey and gear and hopped onto that field. When the coach told me “Go play your heart out, kid.” Those words felt like something that I needed to perform well that day, I felt empowered and that experience is still the one I can look back on and be truly proud of myself for once.  

Some people don’t get it though, they simply say,” just get over it, it’s all in your head and that it isn’t real.” What they don’t know is how real it truly is, how it does so much against you physically and mentally, how it always plagues your mind and hinders you so much to the point of you physically feeling sickly because of it all. They think that these issues are just simple and I don’t get it. Why are these issues looked down upon, why are they so ignorant to these feelings that not just I have, and that ignorance is what hurts me the most. “No matter what, I think, no matter what everyone else says and no matter what stands in my way, even if my own mind goes against me, I’ll keep going.” Those are the words that I live by, the ones I die by and my morals.

Introduction

My goal for this project was to communicate how important it is to have a connection with Sudan and my family through stories I felt the closest to my culture. I am proud of the way I wrapped up my points at the end. I clarified my points and drew a bigger conclusion. Some things I could’ve improved in my essay was the amount of description I gave. If there were more details it would be easier for the reader to imagine the scene in their minds.

“Sorry if I butcher this name…”

I already know that my name is about to be mispronounced. And since my last name starts with an A, it’s usually going to be a struggle within the first 5 seconds of taking attendance. I’ve heard it all, Imon, Amon, Imani… I-M-A-N, the Arabic word for faith and belief, that’s how you spell my name and it’s pronounced exactly how it’s spelled but it seems to always get people’s tongue-tied. Which I don’t get but everyone has different lenses they look through…right.

As a kid, I hated my name. It might have been because of the way it differentiates me from the other kids at school. Asking my parents for a Dora backpack and matching Dora shoes, I felt I had to find another way to connect with the kids at school.

I was 5 years old the first time I went to Sudan and I went with my dad. We stayed in my Aunt’s (my dad’s 1st cousin) house. She had the same name as me which I thought was cool because I barely knew anyone that shared a name with me. I walked into a house that didn’t resemble the houses in America. One house was the size of ¼ of a block in Philadelphia, the outside walls were mint green with a tall white door that didn’t have a door frame, just a door that was connected to the walls, above those walls were barbed wires just like the ones in jails but it was to keep any robbers from entering. She immediately hugged me after opening the door, she seemed so excited to see me even though I just met her. We all went inside and sat down on the perfectly laid sheets. There was this familiar smell that I smelt, it was the smell of burning scented wood hips that mom would burn every time guests were coming over. My grandma’s sister came and greeted my dad and I. I noticed this connection between them when they were talking, picking up where they left off when they last saw each other, laughing while they shared the memories they had together. I just stared at them, chuckling with them even though I didn’t understand most of the things they were saying. I felt the joy in their voices, the smile on their faces soothed my heart. When we were about to go to sleep, my aunt slept with me. She told me that when she heard my dad named me after her how happy she was. How she loudly started proudly cheering, then going around the neighborhood passing out cookies. Her dear friend and cousin moved to America but he never forgot about her. I soon realized that I wasn’t named Iman for no reason, but it was a way for my parents and me to still be connected to my family that lived halfway across the world. It was a way for my parents to remember all the people who they loved that they left behind.

As I grew up, I discovered that I wasn’t alone. Almost all 1st generation Americans go through a similar experience. There was this one time I connected with my Sudanese friends. We were all on Facetime having our usual conversations about news in our lives and sharing inside jokes. We were all on pause when I heard a laugh coming from my phone. I asked what happened and she told us to go look at what she sent us, I thought it was a regular funny meme she just sent. But when I saw the post was from an unfamiliar account. It was called “growingup.sudanese”. Underneath was a meme that read “When mama doesn’t agree with something and she makes it rhyme.” We all started laughing like crazy, talking about how our parents are so weird but funny at the same time. Then we continued to go through their page, connecting even more with every meme we read. I could feel this warm, comforting feeling that made me feel like I can finally relate to people and know exactly what it’s like. Our experiences created these strong bonds.

My name and experiences are apart of my identity. Behind those 4 letters held a history of culture and religion. My parents came to this country taking only what they could from their country, their traditions. It was important for them to share their culture and traditions with their child in this country in which culture can be easily diluted by the American culture. This was something many immigrants experience with their children and as of 1st generations, we have to adapt to where we live in while holding on to our story.

Introduction:

My goal for this essay was to connect two important scenes of memory from my life with a common motif. The motif I found was hardship and hardwork. Both my memories have to do with struggling through something and overcoming challenges even though they might be hard or frustrating. I’m extremely proud of how I describe my scenes of memory by using alliteration and descriptive storytelling. Descriptive storytelling is something I enjoy and have put a lot of work into being good at. I think I could have done a little better at building out my reflections by building out to stronger ideas. But, this type of writing is more new to me and I hope to improve as I continue to write more.

I struggle to blink through the thick heavy rain drops that smash into my eyes as I continue the run. It’s qualifiers for the half marathon and I am of a single mind: finish. My legs ache as they give in a little more to gravity each step. I cross the 10 mile mark and I don’t even notice, I’m too busy fighting myself. I’m burning hot and freezing cold at the same time and to equal discomfort. My hands that have been hastily wrapped in my soggy jacket are beginning to go numb. My lungs feel frozen as I inhale my next breath of cold, wet air. The rain above me is heavy and freezing, each drop a sharp thin needle that rips through my body, fracturing me at my core. But I keep moving, fueled by my reluctant determination and stubborn pride I trudge the rest of the way. Whirling around my head is the only clear thought I can think of, “Suck it up Buttercup, who told you life was fair?” The phrase, handed down to me from my parents, has been what’s kept me going in the past, and the only thing keeping me going now. It’s by this phrase I’ve discovered motifs in the world around me. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and for anything to be achieved, their must be an equal amount of work done to achieve it. I’m reminded of this daily, even though I usually don’t want to be. Ultimate Frisbee practice reinforces this notion daily. Every day starts about the same, 6:00 am and the alarm goes off. I’m torn from my dreams, back into my dark room under heavy quiet sheets. I wake up and look in the mirror to repeat the magic words, “Suck it up buttercup, who told you life was fair?”. Time for practice. Get up, get clothes, get in the car, get to the field. The adrenaline I’ve built up begins to wane as I spill out of the car a tired mess for my first day of ultimate practice. Cold air claws my skin and I’m jolted back awake as I trudge onto the field. My cleats are fresh with newly formed mud as I’m reminded of last night’s thunderstorm with every “Squelch” and “Schlop” my shoes make as they wade through the wet dirt. Freshly cut grass stings my nose, my eyes feel like sandbags sewn to my face, they sting as they try to force themselves back shut, with the little willpower I have I force them back open. I put on my cleats and I stand, zombified, waiting for instructions. “Go for a run” I drag my body into motion as do the other kids on the field. I run around the field and the faster I run, the harder it is for drowsiness to keep up with me. Practice starts and I’m running as fast as I can, my torso trying to keep up with my legs. I’m trying to breath but I’m using more oxygen then I can take in, I’m indebted to my lungs. I hurt in the worst of ways, I want to stop and be able to breathe again more than anything. But the words ring out in my head once more, “Suck it up Buttercup, who told you life was fair?” I keep going.
Hardship and hard work mean so much more than people realize. People often lose sight of putting in work, trading the eventual payoff for the immediate relief in phoning it in. Putting in effort seems to almost be mocked in current culture today. With popular posts on social media advocating for giving up or procrastinating, it’s hard not to be sucked in, to feel validated as you give up. I think people, especially people my age are still learning that the world is dictated by hard work. And the longer it takes for people to recognize it the more work they’ll have to do. Even though we don’t want to, we have to push away the notion that it’s ok to give up or half do something. That’s what the saying means to me, it’s more than a phrase, it’s a representation of what life is and what hard work means. Life is unforgiving, chaotic, and does not have your best interest at heart. That means it’s everyone’s job to engrain what they want into their lives. Even if it starts with a silly saying.

While writing this essay I wanted to bring awareness to how precious a woman is and bring attention to the fact that our soul purpose is not to serve a man. It’s to show the digression of the level of feistiness we have as we grow up in a world that tries to mold us as the archetype servant for a man. I tried to be as honest as possible with my opinions but to also get the reader to understand this isn’t a persuasive essay but one to open eyes and minds. I am proud of this essay because it stands out from many of my other pieces of writing. It’s not about heartbreak, or race wars, depression, it’s about being a woman. It was fun to not be stuck in my same writing topic and divert from the usual. Even though I am very proud of my work in this essay but for future essays I will focus on descriptive writing more, so that I can transport the reader into the scene.

When we are little princesses,we don’t worry about what we wear around our uncles, or if our stepdad will come in the house when we’re getting out of the shower. When the pod becomes a flower it gets pushed into the dark.

Everyday after preschool there was a routine. My grand-pop picked me up, brought me ice cream sandwiches, took me home, made me waffles, we watched cartoons and went to sleep. Naps with my grand-pop were the ones I’ll remember the most, they’re the reason I don’t know how to do homework until 8pm.

I was the babygirl. I woke up from my nap at the age of 12 with girl parts that now set boundaries for me. When a girl grows a woman’s body too early her childhood slips like sand between her fingers. I always wondered why my grand-mom let me and my grand-pop eat while she just washed the dishes. Why my mom felt obligated to make my stepdad breakfast before the rest of the house. Why when my grand-pop had company my grand-mom would say to stay upstairs with her until they left. Why do we go from princess to house slave? Scared to speak unless spoken to, cooking, cleaning, being fully submissive, unselfish, and unconditionally loving. I remember watching Weezy Jefferson go toe to toe with her husband. It made no sense to me why the Jefferson’s didn’t apply to real life. I guess that’s why they say TV is fabricated. TV even depicted modern day moms as sassy, independent,and witty like Rochelle from ‘Everybody Hates Chris’. She is a depiction of the way married women are supposed to be, but why aren’t wives living up to these standards? Are they too high, for the modern day wife?

By the age of 14 I had two sister in-laws. I’ve watched both of them cry, but only in private. It is written in the universal invisible rules of relationships that “if you and your significant other are having problems your outside demeanor should not say so”. Men can cheat, hit, go out, etc. If a women were to do these things they would be looked at as crazy or as hoes. We are forced to keep our pain private. I’ve watched my sister in-laws fake their smiles to the point their faces might crack. One of them,Jade, is 5 years older than me. She’s beautiful with long black hair, tan skin, and an hourglass figure. I’ve seen her breakdown and tell herself “I love him…I can’t leave him”. I don’t know why love makes a woman mindless. She tells me “You won’t understand until you fall in love”, if that’s what love is count me out. “I would never be that stupid” “I would never let a n**** play me”- Said every girl whose words bit her in the ass.

The line between stupidity and love seem to be blurred sometimes. The line between self respect and mindlessness seem to overlap. If the world was full of little girls what would men have? No wife, no servants, no one to blame for their life going wrong, no one’s heart to mangle, nor no one to make excuses for them. Little girls with hair and mouths that can’t be tamed. Princesses who get answers and never give them. What would men do with a world of headstrong girls? We go from being carried on backs to a man’s world nearly breaking them. It scares me to think that I can’t be the Wheezy to someone’s George, the Lucy to a Ricardo, but instead a Ceely to a Mister.

The rules of this game called ‘Life’ were written before paper. Men were winning before women were presented to the playing field. Hundreds of years ago a man was raised to be independent, headstrong, selfish with his time and efforts. Women were raised to look for a husband trained to be a housewife. Females did not understand the power of realizing self worth. Women did not understand how much raw potential they had because all they knew was that getting a husband would be a lifetime achievement. In society it took centuries for a woman to be looked at as an equal, as another being and not an accessory to a man.

A conversation with my grand-mom will always stick with me. While riding in the car going to school, doing my usual game of 21 questions with her, one of her answers stood out to me. I asked “why can’t relationships be equal?” “Relationships aren’t really meant to be equal.You have to be submissive to your husband because he will be in charge. Yes you have a say but sometimes what they say goes.” I tried to give her statement the benefit of the doubt. Tried to convince myself that these thoughts were just coming from her 60 year old mind. But, I realized that it wasn’t her mind, it wasn’t even really her opinion. It was the result of her training, they were the words of the world and its ways. I’m fearful that 20 years from now my daughter will have to push her feelings to the side because she fell in love. Or that I will have a son who feels entitled because he was born male.

I’ve realized I can’t let the world teach me how to be a woman. My pride will forever stick with me. The colorful mind of a young girl will forever rest on my shoulders. I’ve always viewed relationships as equal; I’ve viewed relationships more like partnerships. It might be new aged but that’s the way I see it. I’ve always been a sunflower never to be pushed in the dark.

Introduction:

My goals for this essay, honestly, were to just be honest and tell a story that meant a lot to me. Any other way I try to explain it, I fear that it’s seen as me complaining, so I tried to make it so it would be more down to earth instead. I don’t expect anyone to sympathize with it, but it’s still the story I wanted to share. I’m proud of how I took the time to figure out what I did and didn’t want to include, since I could’ve kept the topic the same but mentioned a different scene of memory. One way I’d want to improve my writing is by getting all my ideas down first and then going from there instead of trying to figure it out before I write. 

Essay:

My backpack made a sound louder than I had expected as I threw it off my shoulder and onto the floor of my room. I took two steps from my bedroom door and sat on the bed to unlace and take off my shoes. I didn’t think much of the sound my bag made until my mom stormed down the hall and pushed my wooden door open. “What was that?” she asked. I turned to face her and replied, “It was just my bag.” She shook her head and closed my door as she started to make her way down the hall. “Too many books in that bag,” I heard her say. I didn’t reply and continued to settle in after coming home from a long day of school. English, Rosetta, history, math, art. All this homework, I thought. So much to finish.

I laid back and sank into my bed. I reached across the grey bedspread over to the small, white nightstand to the right of my bed and grabbed my airpods. I put them in, listened for the sound to signal they’ve connected, and put all of my music on shuffle. The first song that played? “Buried Alive Interlude”. One of my favorite songs from Drake’s album Take Care. The long windows covered with white blinds were slowly getting darker as the sun went lower in the sky. I grabbed my phone off the bed next to me and put the whole album on shuffle. After placing my phone down again, I closed my eyes, and waited for the next song to play.

I care about a lot of things; My grades and homework are some examples of that. I remember being younger and wanting nothing to do with school. Everything required excessive amounts of thinking, and having to take part in that for eight straight months was unappealing. The stress, arguments, and having things not be as fun as they used to be follow me around every school year. Once mid-spring came around, things started looking up again, and it turned into a cycle. The only reason I wanted to go was for my friends, since they were the only good things about school. It took me years to understand that it would happen regardless of how easy or hard the work was. It was just up to me to decide to either fight against it and complain all the time, or do something about it to help get to the end of the year.

The situations that bring you down, like stress and overwhelming events, are the ones that you can’t change. They’ll stay how they are: negative, bleak, and eventually, powerless. It took me about five months to learn that specifically, and after that I could enjoy what I had, like my freedom, my music, and the weather. Over the past three months, especially, I grew. I learned who was and wasn’t there for me (sometimes through the hard way), what I wanted in life and what I didn’t, and what I liked and disliked for so many things. But mainly, what to focus on and what to leave behind. I was sad to see some go and happy to welcome in others. I had to remember it’s not really about them, it’s about what’s best for me.

I found that it’s important to step away and escape with what makes you happy. The feeling of stress from the loads of homework easily washes away when both headphones are in and I turn the volume up a little higher. You can forget the pressure of junior year in high school when you hang out with those you love most and only yards away from the beach. You’re not always going to be near a beach, but over the summer that was the outlet I used to help keep myself relaxed. I know that my situation won’t always be the same and things definitely will get rough. But as long as I keep what’s best for me in mind, I know I’ll be fine.

Introduction

My goals for this essay was to really step out of my comfort zone in writing and trying something different. Usually, for my essays, I write about a sad event that happened in my life, but this time I did something different. I am proud of the number of descriptions I had put into my essay and using words that I haven’t used before. One way I want to improve in my writing is trying to use new vocabulary and use it in a professional way in my essay.

Six Flags Unexpected Adventure

These days, who can you trust? Life is not always churros coated with cinnamon sugar, or a harness protecting you, or a person telling you that you’re “all good.” It’s different. You walk out in the open and wait for something to happen, like Kingdom Ka ready to blast you away, unexpectedly. Everything is so unexpected you don’t know what will happen next. Six Flags is a place to have fun, but to be careful about. This was not a Six Flag Great Adventure I pictured it will be.

“Omg, it’s so hot!” Walking in, waiting in line, just trying to get from point A to point B, the happy sun shines brightly. “Hi.” Gently I put my skinny, long thumb on the scanner. “Enjoy your day at Six Flags!” People pass by me on their way to Green Lantern, kids eagerly rushing to Bugs Bunny Boomtown. I pass a large, crystal clear fountain and a congenial gift shop. “Get close,” I overhear, as a family huddles for pictures together. The sound of the carts zooming through the wind hums in my ear. “Hi, do you guys want a family photo?” asked an employer. “No, we’re fine.” The cacophony of carnival game sounds; screams, shots, and dings, blend with the voices of people hoping they’d win. We walk on, loud music roaring through our ears competes with people trying to shout over the noise. Heading to the first ride, people accidentally bumping into us. Kids are crying. The smell of churros, pizza and turkey legs mixes together. “Omg! Look at this line, yo!” I shouted. All the rides are going to be long regardless, so we walked in. “Enjoy your ride on Green Lantern!” As the man smiled at us. No shade, skin to skin contact, the smell of sweat, which drowned the deodorant, and bugs roaming around us. In the distance, you can hear a girl’s voice, “All clear. Enjoy your ride on Green Lantern!” As time passed, it was our turn to ride. Everything was green, it looked like the wicked witch house from Wizard of Oz. As the cart slowly came back, the lady’s mouth which puffs up like a blowfish, then popped, she almost puked. They unbuckled their belts, while the harness slowly rises above their heads, as they exit the cart. The grey, dirty gate slowly opens, as 4 people from each gate get on the ride. I sat at the end of the cart, my friends’ sister sat next to me, Kobe, beside her was her brother, Dymond, and beside him was my sister, Yolanda. We all pull down the green harness and pulled it down to our pleasure, then attached the belt to the harness, there were only three clicks I heard, mines didn’t make a sound, but it didn’t come off when I pulled it. Eh! Who cares? The guy will check it for me. From the right side of my ear, a voice entered, “Everybody good?” Dymond said, shouting over the loud sounds. We all nod our heads. From both sides of the cart, two guys made sure we’re secured. The guys make it to our cart, in which he checked Kobe’s and pulled her belt which she was secured, then he pulled my belt and it was secured, or was it? The employees who slowly swung their hand side to side, thumbs up. “All clear. Enjoy your ride on Green Lantern!” As the girl said. Slowly as the cart moves, bumpy, adrenalin running, people screaming, “Omg!” Slowly as the cart makes its way to the top, lights, people, then suddenly… cart rushes down, people screaming on top of their lungs, hands grip to the metal bar, palms start to sweat. The tracks in which vibrates through the cart, to our feet, and to our mind. Reaching its highest point, slow, scared, screaming. Looking down, parking lots, lights, then… “Woahh!” The coaster twists and turns as if we were being twisted like a pretzel, the adrenaline freezes into a rage, the blood pressure that can’t decide what to do, the heart faster beats every second. Everything turns upside down, the blood that rushes to my brain, face drooping, hair dancing with the wind, then… blood rushes out of our brains and back to our feet. White lights which flash a couple of times, a picture. The black leather strap which held me into the machine suddenly passes out. The face of confusion, wondering why I hear metal clanking together. I look down, notice that the belt wasn’t secured and had detached from its partner. The ride was not done yet. Squeezing the metal bars, eyes shut as if there were spiders on my face, standing as still as a statue, heart beating so hard that I could hear it above the screams. This is it. Am I going to make it through the ride? Am I going to die? The cart suddenly stops, as if the cart instantly stops at a red light. Looking to my right, “My seat belt came off!” I said with fear. Suddenly, laughter, “You good?” Dymond said. What was so funny about that? I could’ve died. But luckily I didn’t. To hide the fact that I almost died, I covered it off with a laugh. The cart slowly making its way back into place. The harness then rises, I got off the seat, then make my way to the exit. My heart knows what my mind was thinking… thoughts and emotions started to fly into my head. Was it funny? Did they even care? Who knows? Hiding my emotions is something that I can do, in which they locked themselves up. “Alright, guys what ride you want to go next?”

“Life is like a rollercoaster, live it, be happy, enjoy life.” Well, this is not always the case, life is like a rollercoaster: unexpected, anxious, and trusting. Trust is what you need in order to get on rides. Getting on a rollercoaster and expecting to have a “Six Flags Great Adventure,” turned into something I had not expected. After that mortifying feeling, I had no thoughts or words. My mind was blank and all I could hear was the cacophony of carnival game sounds. With a quick gasp, I thought to myself, no I can’t do this, I can’t trust these lies. I thought I was safe. To this day I think to myself what could’ve happened to me, the thought of holding onto my life couldn’t surpass me.

NTRODUCTION: My essay is centered around loss, I wanted to bring attention to the fact that loss is not something that you get over easily. I thought that a good way to do this in my scene of memory is to talk about a time I lost someone and how that affected me and how it still does. I am proud of how I framed my scene of memory and how I then tied that in with my development of larger issues. Overall I am proud of the fact that my essay had a nice flow and good transitions between the different parts. On my next paper, I would like to improve how I developed my larger ideas because I feel like I could have expanded on it more to really improve my essay.

Advanced Esasy #1: Loss

I remember the day that they told me, how the whole family was together; my brother sitting at the table with my sister. My parents standing up in front of the coach…I had just walked into my house, keys still dangling from my pocket, the house was quiet when I walked in, and my music was loud. I pulled my headphones out of my ears, music still playing, as I dropped my backpack onto the floor. I peeked into the family room and saw that everyone was there. I walked in and everyone looked up. My brother got up and just gave me a hug, as I looked over to my mom and saw that she was wiping tears from her eyes. My father reached across my sister to hand my mom a tissue. My sister glanced over to me and then continued to stare into the kitchen as if she had somewhere better that she wanted to be. Everything seemed wrong, nobody was acting like normal. I did not understand, I looked around the room, nothing was out of place, everyone was there, nobody was hurt, what could be wrong…All eyes were on me, then each other, my mom spoke first. “Mama…” she choked. My dad put his hand on her shoulder, as she started to cry again. He turned to me and said, “Grammie died last night.”

I looked down at the floor, then up at my mom, I knew this was harder for her than it was for me, she lost both of her parents, I am blessed enough to still have both of mine. I was ready to walk out, I was ready to go in my room and break something, I was ready to release all the anger that I had built up, I was mad at the world, mad at God, because I did not understand why this had happened. I did not understand why God would let something like this happen and why I could not prevent it, and why I did not expect it. I walked over to my mom and gave her a hug, I let her cry onto me, I just wanted to be there for everyone else, I knew that they all wanted to be there for me but I wanted to show them I was strong. When I got into my room, I shut the door, dropped to my knees and cried, I cried and cried and cried and just let everything out, and now sitting here in the same spot that I was when I first found out, tears are falling again.

I tried my best not to lose myself, I tried my best to come to terms with the fact that I could not take back what had just happened. This was not something that I expected. Eventually… yes I knew this would happen because nobody lives forever but I did not think it would be then. I didn’t think my whole world would explode, I figured it would happen when my world had already exploded but nothing ever happens how we expect it to. The day after I found out, I went to school, I did not want to let this stop me from continuing my normal routine, I even went to my volleyball game. I remember being on the bus crying, trying not to hide it so my teammates would not know, I did not want to burden them with my loss. I looked out the window hoping that if I pretended that everything was fine then it would go back to normal, but of course that never actually happened. It is almost a year later and I still have not come to terms with the fact that my grandma is no longer with us.

I guess that says something about how I deal with loss, about how we deal with loss. It is not something that is easy to accept or get over, in fact, some people never recover. I do not know if I ever will but what I do know is that things will never go back to the way they were, and that is something that we all have to accept. We can never truly grieve if we do not accept the fact that we can not go back and change what has happened. You have to move on, never forget the person you lost or how that made you feel but at some point, you have to continue on.

When I was 7 years old, my elementary school would come and invite everyone to come and celebrate Father’s Day. That was when my 7-year-old fragile self used to cry three nights before the event. That’s when I realized that I did not have a father. My parents separated when I was 2 years old. Since that time, I’ve lost track of my biological father and my mom has been by my side for 17 years. Growing up, I would see my friends getting picked up by their parents. I wanted my parents to pick me up, but my dad wasn’t there and my mom was trying to fit in both roles, which she couldn’t because she was absent most times. Basically, I was on my own and had a hard time processing my feelings. As a kid, there aren’t many times when an adult will sit down and tell you what is going on. With the little information you get, you start blaming people and forgiving is not part of your vocabulary. I used to be rough on myself, I would most times blame myself for the separation of my parents when in reality, I had nothing to do with it and it wasn’t my fault.

Years later, I moved to a private school, where I had friends with successful parents. The following year, we celebrated Father’s Day. My friends dressed up as the mirroring image of their fathers. Instead, I dressed up as a hairdresser with an apron, because my mom was a hairdresser and she sewed for a factory. I started to accept reality and realized that even though my biological father was never there, it didn’t mean that my family wasn’t going to be there to support me. I began to get involved with different classmates and created friendships that are still standing to this day. Yes, I’ll admit that absence sucks but it’s only for a while because then you start to forget what they looked like and that they are just a memory. The absence of something or someone starts feeling like nothing after the years go by. After you make more friends and start new adventures all sorts of guilt, anger, and resentment, it will fade away. Anger and resentment became my friends and my biggest mistake was never talking about it with my family, I didn’t want to be the center of attention. I didn’t want to be another problem.

As I became older, it became harder to understand: Why me? Why does it have to be that way? I had more questions but no one to answer them. Until this day it’s still hard to comprehend why my dad decided to leave and even though we have talked about it, I feel that more happened. He usually says, “I did not love your mom anymore.” That leaves me hanging with more questions like did you love me anymore? Was it the fact that we lived in different places that emotionally separated us?

When my uncle used to play “Don’t Stop Believin” by The Journey on my way to school and we would sing to the top of our lungs it would light up my day. I would pray and ask God why wasn’t my uncle my dad? Or why didn’t I have a dad like him? I had to understand that he was just my uncle. Over the years many people have become part of my life, but when I met my dad I cried. My emotions were confused and still are. I saw him and then I saw my reflection, he is tall with curly hair, big brown eyes, and a deep voice. I would cry for my mom and he would say things like “why do you cry if I’m here?” and I would stay quiet. All that anger I thought I had learned to manage just came back. The worst attitude would come out of me until I made him cry once. I loved my sisters even my stepmother but the problem was with him. Every day for a year, I tried to get closer but it was impossible. I would just think about that time when my uncle told me “Margie you have to jump off the car” because it was burning and how he put my safety first and then his own. Little things that my dad would say, made things harder for me to forgive him, made me want my life back. The last time I saw him, I still felt like a stranger to him. Looking at his eyes I said, “would you still support me even after distance comes between us again?” To my surprise, he said, “I just think you have a better life here.” I am glad I moved to Philly out of a painful relationship, but I do admit that I miss him, I hope he knows that. Then that’s when I thanked my family for helping me become the person I am today. I’ve been a part of a couple of sports teams and clubs I’ve learned a lot from them.

Today I am not upset with my biological father, I forgive him if there is anything to forgive and I wish him the best. He has a new family and I am happy for them, I hope my sisters have a different childhood than I did. The last time I saw him I told him I just hoped the best for him and even though we hadn’t talked in a while, the last time we did we fought, I still want the best for him and I’ll be here to give the support I never got. I’ve realized that family is anyone who welcomes you to their life. After all the pain I’ve learned that I’m not the bad guy in this story and that I never was, neither was him.

Introduction:

When I first started writing this essay, I had to evaluate certain portions of my life and see how they affect me in the present because I had a goal to write about something that I believe affect me in the present. So at first that I would write about music and how it comforts me, however, I decided to write briefly about my life as an African immigrant because this is something that is in my being, something that I will always have. When I finished my essay, I was really proud about my ability to emulate heavy emotions by only using words. Looking ahead into the future I hope that I am able to be more descriptive and egaging in my essays.

Essay:

Coming to America isn’t a movie, it’s a dream. For as long as I could remember all I ever wanted to do was to come to America, meet my parents, go to school, and become rich. Most of these dreams became a reality at the age of six. I was born in Lome, Togo, so when I was three months old, my parents, hoping for a better life, moved to America, leaving my sister and me to be raised by my grandmother until they settled down. My sister, five years my superior, vowed to protect me as my parents boarded a plane to the U.S.

So while I was growing up in Togo, I was always told stories about how one day I would come to America and finally meet my parents and become rich, due to my opportunity. After six years of living with my grandmother and cousins, one night my mother finally came to bring us to the U.S. I was sleeping alongside my sister and cousin when we woke in a panic to the frightening sounds of screaming and jumping. Benighted of the situation, I quickly concluded that the noises were coming from a witch, when in reality, it was my eager mother, ready to greet her children. Everything from that point on moved so fast and before I knew it, I was in America.

The days leading up to my first day of school in the U.S were exciting and filled with restlessness. I would go to my room and try to practice the English I had learned from my younger brother and Nick Jr. I would every so often open up my ‘Cars’ backpack to make sure I had everything I needed for the first day.

Soon enough it was the first day of school and there I was in a room filled with one hundred other kids, sitting on the gym floor waiting for my name to be called. I sat on the cool gym floor just like every other kid, I looked like every other kid in my uniform, I waited like every other kid, but I was unable to comprehend anything that was going on. I tried my best to recall the English that Nick Jr and my younger brother had taught me. The only thing that could come into mind was ‘Good Morning.’ I was sitting on the cool gym floor with a blank look on my face and decided that as soon as I hear “KANKOUE FOLLY,” I would jump up and will enjoy the perfect first day of school.

I sat there a little longer, the gym was getting quieter as parents and students left after exchanging final goodbyes. The gym lost its fire. It became a vacuum of distress and nervousness. A vacuum filled with fidgeting six-year-olds and irritated adults, suddenly I hear ‘Is there a Keekaw Folly in here?’ followed by ‘Keekoe, or is it Koukoon?’ I slowly got up, disappointed that pronouncing my name in an American school sounded like the mating calls of an exotic bird, I dragged my feet as I followed the name butchering woman to my classroom. Over a few years, I had learned English and tried to destroy all evidence of my cultural differences. I was now attending middle school and every so often someone would ask me about my accent, to which I would respond with a story about how I was born in Africa, in a small west African country named Togo. This would usually lead to the person, asking me some unwelcomed questions. “Have you seen a giraffe?” or “Did you live in a tribe?”

The drastic change in culture from when I moved from Africa to America was hard at first because I was unsure as to how I was going to fit in with the other students, despite looking like most of them. Deciding that the best way for me to fit in was to strip myself of my culture, I attempted to do so. I blamed the ignorance of my peers as the cause as to why I was concealing a portion of my identity, when in actuality hiding my culture allowed ignorance to persist, thus isolating me as the most ignorant person in the room. Culture and identity make people who they are, and everyone influences each other, so, your identity should be a reflection of who you are, not who the world says you have to be. In short, normality should never be favored ahead of uniqueness, the world will always have an impact on you as a person, and you will always have an impact on the world by just being you.

For this essay, my main goals were to address a few scenes of memory from my life that go over the topic of fear. I was most proud of my figurative language skills and my build-up of tension. I would improve describe each little scene deeper so that the readers feel like they are in my shoes.

I was nearly 11 years old and totally not excited for what tonight had to come. At this point in my life, my parents are divorced and I live with my mom Saturday through Wednesday while Thursdays and Fridays I am with my dad. A quick history lesson on my dad, he is a teacher for a school in South Philly. He has only one kid(me) and goes to the bar a lot like normal guys his age. Besides watching golf and football his only other hobby is playing music. He loves music, whether it’s to play, listen, or make up his own. For the longest time, he wanted me to get piano lessons. He tried teaching me but like any other father and son, being taught by your dad on how to do something will never go smoothly. It’s like telling a mouse to sleep with a cat, it just can’t work. But after watching him play this beautiful song Fur Elise, I decided it was time to give it a try. I was inspired, but since I told him that I will not learn if he was the teacher we had to think of another way of learning. After some thinking, we agreed that a piano teacher could come to our house and teach on our piano. Ding Dong the doorbell sounds. A jolt of fear and curiosity went through my veins as anyone does when they here an alarming noise. My dad gets up off the couch and heads left towards the door while I head toward the piano. We have a stand-up piano my grandmother gave to my dad when we first moved in. The piano is a dark brown with skinny legs and three pedals at the bottom. The white and black keys were dusty towards either end of the scale while there were greasy fingerprints towards the middle.

I could hear my father open the door and out of my peripheral, I saw a tall white man with long brown hair. I turned my head to the right and made eye contact with the man. He had a brown top hat and a brown coat, his eyes were dull brown with creases beneath his eyes. I didn’t get the jazzy pianist vibe I was imagining but more of a hipster vibe. He came through the antechamber of our house, past the couch and he approached the piano where I was standing. He greeted me with a nicer attitude than I thought he would have. “Heya Max! How was your day?” The man asked me. His eyes were wide open and his head was tilted. It was almost kinda creepy, he reminded me of a clown. “Uhh, alright,” I replied nervously. We then sit down together on the stool beside the piano just underneath where the keys are. Before we go into the lesson he asked me questions to get to know me, which reduced my anxiety levels. That was smart of him because the creepy hipster clown vibe I was getting was not working out. He later went on and showed me what sheet music looked like. I was confused and did not understand how to read notes, It was like learning another language to me. As the lesson went on my slight bit of adermation slowly escaped from me and my hands went cold and lifeless. It was only halfway through the lesson and all I could think about was how badly I wanted this lesson to end. My forearms were squealing with pain and my wrists were droopy from playing cords. The lesson was over and my takeaways were that I was not happy and I wasn’t interested in music anymore. My dad walked him out towards the door and gave him a handshake goodbye. My dad walked back towards me where the piano was. I looked at my dad up and down then proceeded the truth. I told him I did not enjoy any part of what just happened and I wanted out. He was displeased and wouldn’t let me quit this fast. After a few more lessons with me complaining at the end of each one, he finally let up and canceled the piano lessons altogether. After all of this, I realized I had a problem. My problem was that I give up to easy and I am scared of failure. I am scared of what people will think. I am not good with learning anything new besides when I am in school. I figured I had to fix that problem sooner or later. I decided on later…

It was the winter break of my first year at SLA. This new school environment was bringing out a different side of me. I was trying new foods, making new friends, and trying new hobbies. My hard thick skin that surrounded the insecurities got thinner as the school year went along. I became more confident in who I was and who I could be in the future.

Every year for Christmas my family and I drive up to my grandmother’s house in Valparaiso, Indiana. It was always good times over there until I saw an old friend laying beside the stairs. It was black and tall with skinny legs much like the brown hunk of dest I have back at home. My grandma introduced me to it she said she has been getting along with it quite nice and I was impressed by her songs. She taught me how to play one of the easy songs she knows and I caught on pretty easily. I was having fun! I could finally see how my dad could enjoy playing music. I was hooked, for the rest of the vacation, I would play for hours on end until my hands hurt. I played so much in that one week that my grandma taught me everything she knew, a whole years worth of practice that I learned entirely in one week. I was amazed at how easy it was for me to learn songs, I didn’t read the sheet music though. I would learn from demonstration and practice and play by memory. This might have developed some bad habits by not learning by the rules but the point was to have fun! Once the week was over and we drove back home my mom realized my interest in the piano. Later the next month for my birthday she gave me a digital piano with fewer keys than a normal piano. At that time I did not care. I was sick of only being able to play a couple of days a week while I was at my dad’s house. Once my new piano was set up I played every day for as long as I could. I learned songs from Beethoven in only a month after learning how to play. I learned songs like titanic after a few months then later that year I was learning multiple classical pieces all by memory. I became so good that I could learn any song I wanted within a week and play it perfectly by two.

This talent of learning songs fast became more than a hobby and now a passion. I continued mastering piano and still to this day I am still in love with the keys. I really do think that playing the piano opened me up to trying new things. Now I have conquered one of my biggest fears and insecurities, failure.

Introduction:

My goal for this essay was to talk about myself through connecting stories. Since this was my first big writing assignment since last year, I had to read over it multiple times to catch my small punctuation errors. After all of the editing work I have done, I am proud of myself for creating a piece that flows from idea to idea. This piece was edited carefully by myself and other people who also gave me their opinions about the writing. How I would like to improve my writing process for my next paper is to write a plan so I know everything I am going to include in my piece.

Essay:

I am awoken by two high-pitched beeps as my eyes slowly open. “Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat is back and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you. Thank you.” I gave out a yawn. When I shut my mouth, I realized I needed water.

I feel the plane slowly descending and that’s when something between the bottom of my thigh and my ankle started to throb. My brain was remembering what the lady said on the speaker. I had to stay in my chair with my seatbelt on. I moved my leg to get rid of the weird, tingly feeling and then all hell broke loose. I had a charlie horse. My leg was stiff and felt like a rock. It was straighter than a ruler and hurt like it was broken. My heart started to pump two times faster and my teeth were grinding against each other. Eyes of my teammates and random people were staring at me as I was dealing with this agonizing pain.

This isn’t the only time people looked at me strangely. I am known to my peers as one who observes more than one who is always talking. As I was quiet this whole plane ride, once I began reacting to this abrupt pain, it caught the eyes of the ones around me. For me to be comfortable in school, I have to see who’s around me and observe the environment I am in. When I am meeting new kids, I have to find out what they like in order to talk to them. “Simple and right to the point,” is how people describe me. When I finally do speak up, it means I have become comfortable and I find this is when people look at me normally.

Comfort isn’t a charlie horse in your leg. If you are unfamiliar with the term “charlie horse,” it is a bad muscle cramp which stiffens your leg and lasts up to around ten minutes. When you are doing something in the broad lines as exercising and not drinking enough liquids, this is when the muscle cramp takes over your leg.

It was during this moment when I learned that when you least expect it, something will happen that you can’t control. Since I was a child, I was taught to work for what I want in life. But, it’s instances like what happened on my plane ride that I understand that sometimes issues pop up but you have to keep going.

Another example of a situation where an issue arose was when I was playing with an older baseball team on a cold day in the fall. The freezing cold forced me to wear a thick hoodie under my jersey. The wind would pick up the dirt on the ground and spray the little particles at whatever direction the wind was going in.

During my first at-bat, I reached first base. The next pitch, I started to run to second and slide feet first to get to the base before I was tagged. Everything was fine until I felt a liquid slowly moving down my leg. I raised my hands in the air and asked for a time out. It started becoming uncomfortable so I pulled my high socks down to my ankles to see blood smeared all over my legs. Luckily it was just a bad scrape and not a broken leg.

This instance was lucky. It was out of my control to burn my leg on the ground but something worse could have happened. If my leg happened to break I would have been out for the whole season and maybe the next one. All of the work I put in—hours of sweat and blood in the gym working to prepare for something I wanted so bad could have been taken away in an instant.

I am a heavy believer in living life to the fullest because I never know what can happen even if I think I’m in control. I treat every day and every time I’m on the field like it is my last. Lives of young kids are always being taken away from them from something they have no control over. Cherishing every small moment in life is important and staying happy instead of angry can positively affect your life along with the ones around you.

Introduction: For my essay, I tried to find the meaning and the affects that failure has and can have on a person and their goals. To find this answer I reflected on moments from my life where I had failed and wanted to quit because of my failures. I am needless to say very proud of my essay I think I took major failures from different aspects of my life and attempted to dissect those moments to find the effect that failure had on my life. One way I think my essay could be improved is to go more in-depth into what failure exactly is and how many people perceive it. I think next time my writing will hopefully be better than it is currently.

Tuesday Morning. I woke up at 3 o’clock with a sense of readiness to siege the day playing Ultimate Frisbee with my brothers. I made it to Von Coln field at 6 o’clock, walked through the early muddy dirt-covered field staining my new white shoes, I started throwing hoping I retained some of my practice from over the summer. I threw a flick and as the disk left my hand I felt nothing but sadness it just wasn’t where I needed it to be, I threw a backhand as I turned my hips and released I saw the frisbee leave my hand and curve to the ground. I realized couldn’t do the things I thought I could do and I was embarrassed and I had no idea what I was to do. “If you played last year you are with me and if you’re new go with Mr. Henkel. ̈” I followed Heinkel and the rest of the group hoping I would walk away from a better player who got back into the groove of things.

But I didn’t because at the time in my frame of mind I thought I was wasting my time doing something that for a certain period of time I wasn’t as good as I should have been I couldn’t pull it off, I had failed at something and after a while I wanted to quit because of my failure. I went home trying to search deep within myself to find out what I wanted to do and how I was going to bounce back after this setback. ̈ Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory ̈ Is what appeared on my phone during my moment of self-reflection, As I thought back about my day I had to ask myself where you trying or did you give it you’re all. I took a small failure and I almost quit because for a brief moment I lost faith in myself and my ability to deliver the best that I could give. The more I sat and thought about this small thing that happened to me, I understood that the failures that result in quitting happen to many other people, but sometimes on a much larger scale. It isn’t rare for people to let go of their dreams or goals, quitting after not making it to the place they’re expecting to make it to. I couldn’t count on my fingers the number of times I’ve thought or wanted to quit because of the shame that I thought came with failure, but giving up for me is harder than trying. Failure comes from every aspect of life, work, sports, school, and hobbies, but it’s your failures that make you better. I remember my sophomore year in high school, I was taking Geometry and I remember people telling me that this class wasn’t going to be good or that I wasn’t going to be able to complete the course. Hearing all this I went into class not believing in myself and doubting myself because of what other people were saying. We had taken a standards quiz and I had received my grades for each standard and they were mostly all 3s which indicated I needed more practice and should go get help, I didn’t get the help instead I applied myself and removed the words can’t or won’t. I ended up taking another standards quiz and received close to all 5s. The point I’m attempting to make is that I know and fully understand how people’s words or a person’s actions can affect the belief you have in yourself. The idea of everything being easy is just wrong if you know your worth you’ve gotta go get what you’re worth and not blame your shortcomings on those around you. Recently there was an Ultimate Frisbee tournament the first tournament for all returning players and me, needless to say, was very nervous. As soon as we arrived at Holy Ghost practice began. I threw a flic and although is curved a little it was nice and my backhand that followed was a little too high, but it was straight I was ready to play no matter what setbacks came along with it. ̈Jasir!̈ Leahman shouted. ¨Yes.¨ I nervously said ̈Show it to me.¨ Out of the three games I was in three times which I ran for most of it while I didn’t get the chance to do as much as I would have liked to, I didn’t take it as a loss or as a failure I took it as a building block to improve and to show my worth to my team and myself. I have goals and dreams like everyone else and I fight for them because if you fight hard enough the dreams that you dream and the goals that you now wish to accomplish will eventually come to fruition.

Introduction

My goal for this essay was to make sure that in both of my scenes I was very descriptive and was able to draw the reader’s attention. I wanted the readers to see how I felt in that moment and give a brief description of what the environment looked like. I also made sure that the two scenes connected to a theme where it starts to become clear why these scenes have some type of connection. What I am proud of in this essay is explaining the larger theme. At first, I had a little trouble trying to go in-depth with my theme but as I thought about it more then I saw the bigger picture. One way I could improve my writing process was I could’ve done a better job at being descriptive. I was being descriptive but I could’ve done it in a better way.

Change

As life goes on we experience a lot of things. But, sometimes when those experiences happen you see that there is a theme to whatever event you have experienced. What I’m about to share are my experiences and how they connect to a theme. The first scene is my eighth-grade graduation and the other scene is when I started a STEM program at Penn University in the summer of 2018.

The room was big, there were a lot of people. In the first three rows of the room, there are boys who were wearing blue and girls wearing white. We were all sitting patiently as we were watching the principal speaking at the podium. I would zone out whenever someone would be talking at the podium then I would always look at the window. The window had different designs on it like a bird and a sun shining down on the bird. The window had a pink background and I thought the art on the window was very detailed. I would pull my phone out to check the time only time was moving slow. Maybe time was moving slow so I could soak in the moment I thought. After a few people talked it was time. It was time that my class would get their graduation certificates to go on to high school. One by one they called names to get our certificates. Parents and siblings had their phones out recording the moment. This moment was special to everybody and to me as well. I was very excited waiting to hear the statement. “Ms. Hightower, do you let the class of 2017 move on to the 9th grade?” The climate director asked. “ Mmmmm. I do!” said Ms. Hightower with a smile on her face. “Congratulations you all will be able to move on to the 9th grade!” The climate director announced. Everyone rose up and everyone was joyous and excited. Everyone had a smile on their face. I then again looked up at the window with the design on it and I felt like that bird on the window; flying to my next destination.

Now, as I continue my journey to be successful, I decided to do a summer STEM program in 2018

This summer I tried something new. Every year I went to a summer camp and it was a chance for me to actually do something instead of being in the house bored. This summer I would be sacrificing my fun to go do some more learning at a STEM program at the University of Penn. I would be staying at the campus for five weeks. During the car ride, I was nervous. I was thinking about how I’m going to be away from family and living with people I didn’t know. What if my roommates don’t clean up after themselves? What if most of the kids are rude? What if I had trouble making friends and I couldn’t fit in? I had these thoughts running in my head and then I became anxious for the rest of the car ride. When I got to my dorm it wasn’t what I imagined it to be but it was big. I thought the walls would be a different color and there was going to be a carpet covering the whole floor but I thought wrong. I noticed there were two grey couches as soon as you walked in, they were leather and on the right side was another couch with blue cushions along with a wooden armrest. There were other people in the dorms as well and they seemed pretty excited happy. We all introduced ourselves and continued to unpack. The walls and floors were milky white, mostly all the walls in the dorm were that milky white color. I pulled out the comforter and the sheets as it brought to my attention that I would be away from home for five weeks. But, this would allow me to experience something new and see how college life was. We were done unpacking everything and it was time for the parents to leave. I said my goodbyes to my family and it felt weird. It felt like I was actually going to college; I was starting a new chapter in my life. “Goodbye, son I hope you have a great time and learn something new!” My dad said “Okay, dad I will.” I responded My family left as I was getting ready for a new journey!

These scenes are different but these scenes can both connect under a theme. In both of these scenes, I was experiencing change. In my first scene, I was preparing to leave middle school to move onto high school. Then, in my second scene, I was moving into a college campus for 5 weeks to continue my studies in a STEM program. I noticed that with both of these scenes I choose to move up a step in my life and with entering a new chapter I knew some things weren’t going to be the same. I was a little nervous but I was mostly excited. I had to realize that it is okay to be afraid of change but at some point, I have to come to terms with change. With accepting these changes I learned more about myself and helped me to learn what I am capable of.

Intro paragraph : My goal for this essay was to show and try to get my peers to think about this idea of living a life with no worries and living a life where all someone does is worry and think about the bad things in life. I think that in this essay I did a good job of explaining and giving reasons as to why people would and could live both type of lives(carefree and concerned, so that’s what I’m proud of in my essay.

Painting with a twist for the first time. It was such a nice, sunny, summer day, a little hot but a calm breeze blowing just right.I was going to paint today. Painting for real for the first time ever, not just getting a little messy with paint like I did back in middle school art class. I’m going to paint,yay. Sitting in my seat not knowing where I will start from first, Lauryn Hill’s soulful voice filled the room, singing under my breathe so only I can hear. “Strumming my pain with his fingers.” There I was, listening to the instructor as she tells me what to do first. “Pick up your paintbrush and gently dip it into the blue paint, once you have done that start to paint side by side at the top of the canvas,” she says. I pick up my paintbrush and as slowly as possible I dip only the tip of the brush into the paint making sure I didn’t get too much on it so that it wouldn’t drip. Once I do that I put my paintbrush down and wait for some more instructions. The instructor begins speaking again“ now this background has three colors in it blue, which we already did, purple and pink. This shouldn’t be too hard I say in my head as I pick up my brush twirling it in a container of water to make sure all the blue paint is off. Then I begin to paint smoothly onto the canvas with the purple paint covering the whole middle of the canvas. I then finish the background by putting the pink all at the bottom. I look around to see how everyone else’s painting is going and now I’m ready to move to the next part. I wash my brush and dip it into the black paint moving upward making two lines that meet in the middle onto the canvas. It’s smooth and the lines are just about the same size. After gliding my paintbrush on the canvas adding my finish touches I smile from ear to ear very satisfied with my painting. My painting was one of the best and I would love to do painting with a twist again.

I can never understand how so much good can go on but then there can be so much bad as well. Living in a world where anything can happen is pretty scary. Never knowing if something bad will happen at anytime is absolutely mindblowing. I know that people are supposed to look on the brighter side of things and live a happy life but can that really happen when there is so much to worry about in the world? For me causing awareness and being aware of things is very important. Some people may not necessarily care or are worried about it but at least they know about it and can speak on it if they want to. I say all this to say that when I found out about the Paris attack in 2015 I was not only brought to a point of concern but it made me realize how much more aware I need to be about certain things and situations that are worth knowing about.

Sitting in the living room while my mom, who’s in the kitchen filling the whole room with the smell of crispy fried chicken. She takes a break from cooking and comes to sit next to me. I see from the side of my eye that she turns on the news and all I hear is BREAKING NEWS PARIS HAS BEEN ATTACKED. I immediately looked up from my phone and I am locked into the tv. My mouth drops open so big and then a cold chill swifts through my body. “ Oh my goodness,” my mom says as she turns up the television so we can hear it better. What would make someone do this, is what I think in my head as look down back into my phone checking to see if anyone has posted about this. On every news channel you turn this is what they were all talking about. Shaking a little because I was now wondering what does this mean for the US. Are we next? Do they want to attack us for any reason? I honestly didn’t even want to think about it.

How can I be so carefree only thinking about me and painting, but then concerned and worried about the people and Paris and all the different things that are going on in the world. Which brings me to this interesting debate of living a carefree life or living your life with worry. Like Simba said “Hakuna Matata” which means no worries for the rest of your days and a lot of people live their lives by this motto, but some people might think how can you possibly have no worries when there are so many things going on in the world you have to always be on your P’s and Q’s. In life you go through so many different emotions and things ,so you can’t really compare your life to someone else’s same thing with beliefs and worries. Some people just don’t find certain things worth worrying about, Look at life this way, be aware, know what is happening and that my friend is a very fine way of living.