Advanced Essay #1: Never let anything get in your way

Introduction

My goal for this paper is to share my story with others, so that they can understand why I am a certain way. I want people to know, how it is that I started speaking the same language as everyone else. A part that I am proud of is where I explain how it was going out to try to get help from others and how I felt. Something that needs improvement is that I should add more details and be more descriptive. Also, I should try to reflect more and try to connect it with my larger idea.


Never let anything get in your way

Daily, we go around, pressured by obstacles thrown into our path in order to make us give up and quit. My parents are both Mexican, so they grew up learning spanish, and weren’t taught english in their schools. They decided to come to the US in order to provide a better life for themselves and for their future family. As I grew up, the language I was taught was spanish, so it was difficult for me to communicate with others. Eventually, I started going to Pre-Kindergarten, but it was a difficult time for me because I couldn’t understand the teachers or my classmates, so I wasn’t learning anything. There were many times when I would cry, because when it came to recess, I would be playing by myself because I had no friends because of the language barrier. I would sit near the tall princess' castle, picturing myself as the princess living in a magical land filled with happiness and everyone getting along. When it came to homework, I didn’t understand what was on the paper, and neither did my parents, so we would have to go out and ask others like our neighbors for help.

At the time, I used to be super embarrassed, because I hated having to go to the same people over and over and ask them for help. At times, I felt dumb because I was the only one having trouble in class. However, thanks to my mom always pushing me, and to my pre-k teacher, little by little, I started learning more and more English. One day, the teacher announced that we would be having an end-of-year celebration, where we would present a play to our parents and other students. The teacher said, “Everyone, we’re going to be having a safari themed play. 1 person is going to be the guide and everyone else is going to be some animal.” I was beyond excited to learn that I had been chosen to narrate the story and be guide. I practiced everyday, and finally, the day of the play arrived. I read every part carefully and at the end, everyone got up and applauded me. When it was done, many parents and other teachers came up to me and congratulated me for my wonderful reading.

If it weren’t for my determination and the extreme support from my parents, I probably would’ve never gotten this chance to be the reader. Thanks to them and to the resources presented to me, I was able to learn English, and then move on and help my parents with it. Ever since those days, I’ve learned to give back to those that were just like me, using my english to help others out. For example, I would be the one to help my siblings with their homework because my parents didn’t understand. I’ve also been an interpreter to my parents when it comes to appointments or meetings, I help translate. I’ve also helped some of my parents friends with translating things and helping them understand.

I’m thankful that my parents decided to learn english, because it’s helpful now, so that my family members aren’t only relying on me for help. From these experiences, it’s shaped who I am as a person, I’ve become independent because I’ve basically had myself as my “teacher” and I don’t often ask for help because of how often I did when I was younger. Sometimes we take the safe road on many things, instead of wanting to take risks. It’s probably because we are scared of what those risks might lead to, we are scared of failing. As I’ve grown up, I’ve had many decisions to make where I knew that taking a risk, stepping up, and not giving up would help me accomplish things. I thank God for giving me the strength to never give up, He had a reason for my struggles and a gift for my faithfulness. As Confucius says, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”

Advanced Essay #1: Traffic Light

Introduction

My paper is about how everything around me is different from what I want and need. You’ll find out that the more people that come into my life makes it harder for me to just be free of life. Throughout the story, there are parts where you should ask yourself and compare how life is different for each person. Some people may think that my story isn’t relatable at all, others believe they could be living the same life. I want to thank Amelia because she helped me include greats ideas to make the story more powerful and compare it to other things. If I had the chance to rewrite this essay, I should have made the story build up more to show the purpose of the whole story.


Traffic Light

I’ve always thought about kids. Constantly questioning myself if I want kids or  to push them aside for as long as possible. When I was eight years old, my cousin Aedan was born. At this age, I had to learn to take care of him while still taking care of myself along the way. Changing diapers, making milk/food to feed him, putting him to sleep and so much more. As a child, I would watch kids on T.V. being given fake babies to learn how to care for them but I was given a real live baby. There wasn’t plenty time or a moment to fail, only success. As I got older, there came a point where more babies came into my life. It was more difficult each time because that also meant more responsibilities coming along with each one. I was given these babies without any help and I was glad they weren’t mine because I didn’t have to watch them day and night.

At that age I couldn't help but think that children are only used for play. Now I can't help but think, what if I’d have to experience it on my own?

The rush of anger comes when I hear babies cry, they can't tell you what they want, so how exactly would you know? A bottle would appear in their mouth in two seconds but will then disappear in one. After holding them for so long, my arms start to shrivel and so I put the baby down ever so gently so they could sleep without waking up again.

To have some time to myself and relax, there are days where, I wake up at six in the morning to take a nice long, warm, steamy shower. By long, I mean ten minutes. After I put on my uniform, I would get my brothers, Evan and Aaron, dressed. Along with that I would fight with them to brush their teeth, pick up their dirty laundry, and check everyone’s homework before I have to leave. Time is 8:15 and I’m still struggling to finish all these things.

As the day goes on, I stop thinking about my brothers and go on with my life. School is fun because I’m without them but my peers know me as the mom. The mom who gives reminders about where they need to be, what they need to do, and how to do things. When they call me mom it’s hard to think will I always be like this and is that a good thing; am I a good person?

Walking home alone from school, I see parents picking up their kids from the school yard. All of a sudden, I remembered I was supposed to do something after school, but I was already half way home. It takes six minutes to walk from my house to their school but school was dismissed twenty minutes ago, so I, of course had to rush. I put both of my book bags straps on and began to run. Every time I got to a light it was always green, as if the light knew I was in a rush, until the last one. It felt like the longest red light I had ever crossed. By the time the light turned green, the people from my initial start was next to me. Rushing up the hill into the elementary school, up the stairs, then down the hall to pick one of them up. Immediately after, going back out the school, down the hill into the middle school to pick up Evan.

After running from these places, I couldn’t feel my feet but I could catch my breath. As I was walking home with Evan and Aaron I thought about what my place in life is. When is it my time to show who I am? It terrifying to think about myself and put myself first when there are other people who are more important. I can’t put myself first when there are other things that need to be taken care of. School comes first but I’m too busy thinking about doing the laundry for everyone in the house. Family comes first but I’m trying to get myself together. Just thinking about what’s wrong with me, a tear fell down my face and onto the pavement right in front of me. One tear drop turns into rain. I start to push the boys to run fast so we could get home.

When I got home I thought to myself, who am I to everyone? No one at my house supported me, people wouldn't care if I went away. If I went away I wouldn’t know where to go. If I left, who would take care of the kids. I can’t focus on me without thinking about the kids and teaching them to do things on their own so I can leave and be free. It difficult to think that they are the reason I can’t leave. They rely on me so much that they’re now too lazy to do things themselves and restrains myself from doing other things. When will it be my time to live my life as a kid and be fun because life is short and soon I have to think about how to live by myself, with work, and paying bills. When that time comes will there be anyone to help me then?


Advanced Essay #1: Breathe a Deep Breath

Introduction:

The goal of my paper is to demonstrate my struggle with anxiety, and to elaborate on how I was able to embrace it. I see the topic of my essay as something that could be relatable for a lot of people, and I can imagine it having an impact on many. I also wanted to reflect on my experiences throughout my writing and depict how they affected me on a larger scale. Throughout my essay, I used an immense amount of literary devices as a way to make broader connections to the emotions I was feeling and the images that I was seeing. With that being said, I am proud of how I was able to convey my point across nicey, and how I developed some analogies that may have a bigger impact on people. In the future, I think it would benefit me to increase the amount of dialogue that I use throughout my essay. I see this as a benefit because it may give the reader a closer look at the overall context of my descriptive scenes.


Advanced Essay #1:


Anxiety engulfs me from top to bottom, like when all you wanted to do was take a dip in the ocean, but you end up drowning instead. It would always occur before something important, no matter what the event, it was a given that I would been shaking uncontrollably only moments before. I blamed it on my fear of messing up, a trait that correlated well with my Type A personality. It had caused me to remind myself of any bad possibility that could happen, and to compare myself to others as well. It was physically and mentally draining, dealing with the constant shaking, jittery memory, cold sweats.

It’s crazy to think about how one moment can wash your body over with anxiety in an instant. Taking the happiness you once had and replacing it with self doubt. Grasping any inkling of self esteem that you had left and tossing it out the window. It was a feeling I wouldn’t wish on many, but I was something that I had definitely felt. I was at my last Cross Country competition before State Championships on a chilly fall day. Tension was ripe in the air as students from different Catholic and Public schools prepared to fight to the death for those precious spots to States. The stakes were high, especially for me. I would’ve had to run a personal record for myself in order to make it, but despite the circumstances, I was determined. It was finally time for me to run. I tried to prepare myself, but my body was numb. My feet were planted on the ground, hands clenched tightly into fists, and blood rushing with adrenaline. As the starting signal went off, my surroundings became a blur. I ran as fast as I could throughout the whole course, leaving no room for error. If this was my last shot to make it, I was gonna make it count. The sound of my heart pounding was so loud that it gave me a headache, and I breathed heavily as my lungs grasped for any ounce of air. As I crossed the finish line, I laid my hands on my knees and let out a large sigh. The deed was done, it was all up to fate now. Moments like this happened to me often. I’d be put into a new situation and immediately get uncomfortable or I have to do something to achieve a goal that was extremely important to me. Every time, my reaction was the same.

It was the start of a new beginning. I was finally bursting out of my super glue sealed bubble, and taking the bus home for the first time. While this might’ve seemed like a simple task to many, it was a hardship to the petrified adolescent that I was at the time. I had lived a very sheltered life for most of my childhood, with not being able to cross the street alone till I was 9 years old and only being able to ride my bike past a certain house being prime examples. These normalities in my life caused me to get extremely anxious very easily when I was put into new situations. This was definitely one of those moments. It was finally a gift a freedom, but it was one I was questioning being given. The route seemed simple enough, but it was going to be a long journey back to my suburban home in the Northeast. A trolley, a train, a bus, and a 10 minute walk all needing to be ridden before the sun went down. I didn’t even want to fathom what the consequences would be if I got home later. Hundreds of thought’s were running through my mind. What if I got kidnapped? I’m tiny, someone could easily take me. What if I get on the wrong bus? Will people look at me like I’m lost? The possibilities I came up with were as dark as onyx, and they definitely didn't help ease my nerves. As I sat on the bus, I tapped my foot on the ground and stared out the window, adamant about avoiding any glances from the people around me. My hands shook as I prepared myself to pull the line that would signal that my stop had arrived. Finally, I was here. All that was left was my walk, although, it actually ended up becoming a run. My target was in sight and I was ready to reach it, and when I finally did, the relief that I felt when I knocked on my front door was better than the feeling of being given an ice pop on a hot day.

Getting anxious before important events in my life was a feeling that I had gotten accustomed to. Reminding myself of every wrong scenario that could happen, only increasing my nerves even more. Although, the bright side was that the feeling let me know what significant moments in my life were, and the severity of it would be an even bigger sign of its impact. I was scared of losing grasp on things that were important to me, and the anxiety was sign of that.


Advanced Essay #1: Stubborn Ol' Tony

​Introduction: 

My piece Stubborn Ol’ Tony is about me reflecting on past experiences, and sharing what they helped me learn about myself and other things. I hope that when reading this piece it’ll help the audience/reader to learn or see something about their self that they didn’t notice before. A lot of my piece is about reflection, and I want people to learn to reflect on all their actions. After they reflect on all their actions, they need to learn from them and see what they will do differently next time, including myself. When it comes to my essay, I’m unsure of how I did. I personally am proud of my reflection and all pieces that revolve around me reflecting on experiences in  life. My explanation about understanding one’s perspective is also a very dominant piece in my work, in my opinion. The memories could’ve been more descriptive or just included more important english rules, for example, figurative speech for describing the scenario and everything around me.


Advanced Essay:
Stubborn Ol’ Tony

Last summer was when it came to me… It started when my best friend and I got into an argument. This argument went on for a long time due to lots of different factors. We aren’t able to see one another all the time, and that’s because of different household rules. My mother isn’t strict when it has to do with going outside, and how far I go. There are the limitations, however, for example, I can’t just go to New York out of nowhere. Some would say it sounds like she doesn’t care, but I know that she just wants me to explore, and get out more. She is treating me like a young man, and that is what I am. My lovely friend has cautious parents who don’t allow her to go outside all the time, there are actually limitations for how often she can go out.

I was as blind as a bat. I emphasize this because arguments happened.

I’d constantly say “I’m always trying to make plans and you say no”. Statements like this can have a huge strain on a relationship between people. This is the case because it seems like you are blaming someone for something, and saying that they don’t want to hang out. We don’t live close to one another, I live in Grays Ferry (South Philadelphia near Southwest), and she lives in Frankford (Northeast Philadelphia).

She’d constantly say “I am not able to hang out all the time, I don’t have as much freedom as you do”. These things are all true, she doesn’t have as much freedom as me, she isn’t always able to hang out. These arguments would go on because of me. I wasn’t putting myself in her shoes and in doing so got mad at her. It wasn’t fair, and seeing things from another’s perspective is always important and at the time I was incapable of that.

Everyone in an argument or debate will say “oh, I get what you are trying to say and how you see things.” That isn’t always the case, sometimes people just say that to say it. I’m an example of this, I figure this as much because being stubborn is what Antonio DeRock is known for. Meeting new people and entering high school helps people mature and learn more about themselves. Being stubborn was a trait I never realized about myself beforehand. Everybody in the world has their own perspective on issues or even ideas, the problem is people don’t respect their point of view. You don’t have to agree with them, but you can’t argue something if you don’t know where they’re coming from. I truly didn’t know where my friend was coming from. That is why no matter the case I was wrong in that situation. It was wrong of me to do, and didn’t have a good representation of who I think I can be. It was disrespectful, and I want to be a better person than that. I want to see other perspectives, respect them, and be open to new ideas. This is about me reflecting on past experiences and reflecting on moments in general. Reflecting on moments such as arguments and other things like debates or even conversations are important because you can learn a lot from your mistakes. Reflecting in general is an important strategy to do in life, sometimes we don’t even realize it when we’re doing it.

There was a morning recently where I was woken up due to loud noises. When I made it to the dining room window I look out and see my mom and her friend, Larry. I see the sweat going from their forehead down the side of their face. If I touched them, I know for sure that my hand would result in being moist.

I then called out “what are you guys doing?”

My mom responded “we are cleaning the garage, would you like to help?” I was hesitant at first due to me just waking up, I still decided to help though however. When I went down through the garage door, I could see that everything was basically cleaned and taken out of the garage. My mom went through the totes and she found some baby pictures of me. They were cool pictures that I’m glad that I saw. A picture of me with a bowl on the top of my head as a baby, and I had a big smile on my face as I sat in the baby seat. Moments like these are significant because we see times when we’re happy and wonder about that. As a baby, it’s either you are crying or the happiest person in the world.



Advanced Essay #1: My Internal Reality

​Introduction:
My Internal Reality is written in such a way that it performs two main ideas, that merge into one another. This essay is meant to display the idea of how personal thoughts can only be heard by oneself, and trying to control these thoughts by acting as if they are not there and showing no emotion towards it. Seeing other people no react the same way can cause conflict between thoughts and reality. I am pleased to say that I was proud of the flow in the story, but I think I could have used more work on how to properly develop a strong reflection throughout the entire piece. 

Essay:

I am Kiah J, a person who does not put her last name on anything. A person that doesn’t like to share her feelings, or show emotion that makes her inferior, only speaking her mind when completely necessary. Also, a person who is deeply scared of dogs.

Woof. Woof. Wooof.

A pony-sized dog howled and came right up behind me, as I ran into the recreation center, straight through the hallway, and stopped before I turned the corner. A sigh came out of my body.

I walked up to the heavy double doors and pushed through them, revealing myself to the rest of the area. Immediately the smell of feet and sweat, with a hint of febreze filled my nostrils, making them flare up, taking in more of the odor. My foot steps onto the floor, and I walk to my silver and black cubbie, placing my clothes inside. I take my vans off and crouch down, just to perfectly place them under my clothes, then straighten my legs back up to their original position and throw my backpack on top of the cubbie.

My body turns itself around looking at the door, waiting for her to burst into the gym shouting, “Haaaay KJ, haay Aunt Nikki, Haay Girls!”. Instead, all I saw was a door. A plain and now uneventful door. I notice the gym itself, observing it like it was my first day at the gym. In a weird and sorrowful way, it was my first day back in the gym. Girls warming up, coaches giving corrections, and mats piled everywhere, just because no one ever feels like putting them back to where they belong.

She just left, how can everyone act like nothing happened? How can everyone just move on so quickly? Why can’t I do the same? Did she not mean anything to anyone? My mind was just spinning around the same questions, I couldn’t get them out of my head. All I could do was stare at everyone, until I gathered enough strength to hold back my tears. I stretched with my teammates, and decided to act just like they were, unbothered.

Containing my emotions inside, putting on a brave face, and moving on with life was what I was trying to do. My head hurt, I didn’t eat, and I couldn’t say more than 5 words when someone talked to me. I could tell that I wasn’t handling it right, I got angry. Angry that she left me, angry that nobody noticed, and angry that I couldn’t myself together. I pushed those feelings to the back of my brain. Get over it Kiah. Stop thinking about it.

Amberredz was what she loved to be called, but she settled with Ambeezy when it came to me; she let me get away with a lot of things. Because of this nickname, she came up with KJ, and it stuck onto me like glue. We were the perfect example of crazy cousins, and the perfect partners for committing a crime: the brains and the fearless. We spent countless days together, from the day I was born, to the day she died.

Your death hit me harder than anything in my life ever had.

“Get your grips on KJ... KJ!!” My coach blurted out.

“Yes,” I answered, startled.

“Are you okay? You can talk to me”

“Yea I’m good.”

I got up and let my legs take me towards my cubbie, as I was suddenly too tired to do anything important. I realized I was sulking, and I fixed my posture without a second thought. I repeated over and over in my head: You are okay. You are okay.

My hands were covered in chalk by just simply touching my grips, as I looked at the chalk, I put on the best smile my mouth would allow. Grips were on, so I went towards the rest of the group and listened to their conversation about school and what classes they had. My coach opened his mouth and began to talk.

My ears could only hear a song from the radio playing. It had become louder and louder, and I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker. It was one of Amber’s favorite songs.

I sprinted out the room, with my eyes overflowing with tears that I couldn’t control anymore. I leaned on the soda machines and fell to a fetal position sobbing, like a music video break up song. Suddenly, my coach came out, and sat down and hugged me.

“You don’t have to be strong, it’s okay.”

Although having a poker face is what I show, it doesn’t mean I’m all right. Being in a position where no one understands is hard enough, and keeping it in makes it worst. Mourning is not an easy task, it's one that seems so simple, until it actually happens, and the complexity is too much to handle. I have revealed that forgetting or pretending is not having strength, it's having the ability to admit my true feelings towards Ambeezy. It's remembering her for all the good things done together: laughing at memes; eating pizza; watching “Martin”, even if it meaning crying. It's wishing she was here in special moments: getting my belly button pierced; watching “The Wiz”; performing at competitions. It’s knowing she hasn’t left me by myself, with the same fear of dogs like she once had. A fear we once shared.


Advanced Essay #1: It's Ok To Be Alone

​Introduction:
The goal of my paper was to describe how I have become more comfortable at being on my own. I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to having to doing something by myself and I feel like I have come a long way from that. I am proud of how I was able to describe my emotions throughout the piece. I think that I could improve more on my reflections in the future along with being more concise with my writing overall.

It's Ok To Be Alone:

When I was a little kid I could never sleep over any of my friends’ houses. Despite how independent I wanted to be, the thought of spending the night away from my home and my family made my stomach drop. While most kids were able to shed this fear once they entered elementary school, I still remained afraid. I always worried that something would happen back at home and I would not be there to help, or that something would happen to me and my family would be too far away.  

It wasn’t until much latter, nearing middle school, that I began being comfortable over someone else’s house. Flashing forward to my freshman year of highschool , I found myself being able to leave my family for days at a time while being accompanied by my friends. Still, I always knew that my family remained fairly close wherever I went. I never thought that my comfort would have to be tested much after that, but an impulse decision made towards the end of freshman year led to just that very thing.

It was a typical afternoon where I was laying on my couch, attempting to complete my homework. My laptop pinged and I look towards the screen to see an email in my inbox. The email was to remind students that it was the last chance to apply for a STEM based trip that would occur in San Francisco, on the other side of the country.

I perked up as I read the email, having always dreamed of putting myself out there but constantly being held back by my doubts. After much convincing from my mother, I decided to take the chance. Hastily, I wrote the required essays and just barely submitted them before the deadline.

If I am to be honest, I had not given the trip anymore thought from there. It just seemed too unrealistic for me to win, which is why I was surprised to later find that I had been selected to interview for a spot on the trip. That day I was met with wide smiles from my parents as they assured me that I would do well. Going to bed later in the night I found my body tense and my mind racing. Sure I was excited, but I was also terrified. Half of me wanted to win and go while the other half argued that it was better to stay at home.

The time soon came for me to be interviewed. Dressed in what my mother called nicer clothes,  which were khakis and a polo shirt, I nervously made my way into a crowded conference room. Three tables connected around the room and led to a singular chair, where I was to take my seat. A much larger group of adults, all with varying positions in relation to the trip, watched me with fascination from their seats around the tables. I felt like I was on trial as a rapid series of questions were thrown at me from too many people with not enough time to respond. Talking about myself and my ambitions, I found my voice shaky and my answers too simple and short. I was certain that I bombed it.

I was again surprised when I received a call some days later telling me that I had been chosen to go on the trip. Not being able to contain my smile, I made my way downstairs where I told the news to my family. After a while I was left alone to think and I found my mind unable to relax. Worry and doubt seemed to course through my veins. My brain kept telling me that on the other side of the country anything could happen and that everyone I knew would be too far to help. From the days leading up to the trip, I wrestled between feeling excitement and dread.

When the time came for me to leave my heart was racing. I stood outside at the designated drop off location where I looked nervously at the cloudy sky, clutching my luggage like a lifeline. I was anxious, having not knowing  anyone who was going on the trip with me. I was going to be alone.

“Will you be ok?” asked my older sister.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” I lied with a nervous smile.

The rest of the day seemed to go by in a flash. I was at the airport going through security, I was on a plane soaring through the sky, and then I was in California all by myself. San Francisco was beautiful, though a little overwhelming. After some sightseeing, I was glad to make my way back to my hotel room and into my bed. That night my heart ached as I called my parents and told them about my first day. It had seemed like I was never going to get better.

However, after each day of the trip, I found my worries getting smaller and smaller until eventually I had none at all. Though I missed my family, it was easy for me to get swept up in the excitement of a new city and new people, of new experiences and even newer freedom. I realized that while I was with my family, I never spoke for myself. I was always a piece of a larger whole. From being alone during that week, I discovered that I could choose how to represent myself and how I wanted to be. More importantly, I realized that sometimes it was ok to be alone and out of your comfort zone. When you did something by yourself, you may be surprised by what you have discovered.



Advanced Essay #1: The Betrayer

Introduction: 
Growing up I was betrayed a lot by family, friend and sometimes, even strangers. So in this essay, I decided to share a couple of experiences and my reflection on how those betrayals shaped me. My goal was to explain how being betrayed can sometimes make you more cautious on how much trust you give a person. 

Advanced Essay: 
“Where is she?” a strange voice questioned.

My heart clogged my lungs as I let out an unpleasant scream. They were taking her away from me, again.

I lived with my mom, dad, and little sister at the time. Life wasn’t going so great for me. I had good grades, all the toys I could ever want and of course, both of my parents living with me, but, they weren’t really there. My dad worked as a truck driver, so he had crazy, unpredictable work hours. My mom used to be a nurse, that is until she found a new hobby, a new friend, PCP. PCP became her new life, she got high no matter what time of day or night. The drug caused her to hallucinate frequently, wandering off into different galaxies. She would not usually get high in front of my sister and me, but when she did, my world would shatter into a billion pieces, as I watched her spineless body fall to the ground.

“You can’t blame her for becoming addicted, Doniesha” my dad always reminded me.

But I can blame her. I can blame her for betraying regularly. She would always express to me how bad she felt for disappointed me so many times. She told that I could trust her, that she wouldn’t hurt me anymore.

It felt very weird, yet, liberating in the beginning. My perception of trust for her went from subjective and attached to objective and detached. I received a lot of realizations after the many betrayals and I moved on more confident and stronger.

Over the weeks, she began getting slimmer and her neutral facial expression became very bland. She got into many car accidents and physical altercations while under the influence of this evil, corrupting drug. This caused her to become a frequent inmate, both in the county jail system and in her very own psychological prison. The worst part about the entire situation was that she betrayed me. My mother was supposed to be someone that I could look up to. I no longer had that uniform female in my life to talk to me about love and menstruation.

Being raised in an environment where my female role model, modeled nothing but bright orange jumpsuits and my father’s broken heart caused him to entirely box himself out from the real world, I began to become depressed. So to cope with my depression, I began to write all the time. Somehow, I managed to build a new life and start fresh, at least, that's what I thought.

One Saturday morning changed everything. I recall having the best dream of my life. That all was ruined when I was rudely awakened by a loud thudding sound coming from the front door. As I querulously crept downstairs to investigate, I heard an unfamiliar voice at the door. Whoever the mysterious voice was, it was asking for the whereabouts of my mother. My dad let out an angry sigh and opened the door completely to let this stranger inside of our safe home. When the man stepped through the door, I heard a raspy dispatcher’s voice on a small walky-talky and I realized that the stranger, in fact, was a police officer looking for my mother. I sat on the last step of the staircase and began to cry. I knew he was here to take her back to jail. It wasn’t anything new.

“Abbigail?” the officer projected “Where are you?”

My mother walked down the stairs with a large chef’s knife in her hand.

“Drop the weapon Abigail!” the officer demanded.

“They told me to come with them, it’s better in the underworld” my mom stated tediously.

I hopped up from the step and gazed at her black, soulless eyes with trepidation. I will never forget the sound of that stainless-steel hitting the steps, tip first. The officer handcuffed her, took her to his car and drove off. I still remember sobbing louder than the sirens as I heard them fade off into the distance. My dad slid his sore slender back against the wall and sighed again. But this time it was a good sigh. A sigh of relief.

I view the idea of betrayal as a learning experience, it has a positive connotation. I speak for myself when I say that being betrayed makes you more vigilant in how you manage relationships that you encounter. You no longer trust the betrayer the same you're always skeptical and on edge when you are dealing with the betrayer. I soon had to realize that trust wasn't supposed to be given but it needed to be earn. Even for the people who promised that would never betray you.

When I was in 8th grade, I had to take part in court-mandated therapy sessions.

"Go and share your thoughts, and maybe it will help you feel better" the judge expressed.

So I went and at first, I really enjoyed it. The therapist would get me to express my feelings by playing board games and coloring. I started to open up more, I started to trust her. That's when things changed. When I walked into her office on Thursday evening, there were no board games, there were no coloring books, but instead there sat my therapist behind a rusty brown desk. She instructed me to come in and sit down.

"W-where are the games?" I questioned bafflingly.

"There are no games today sweetheart, we need to talk."

She told me that everything that I told her was confidential, but at that age, I didn't understand what that word meant.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means that I can't tell the judge, mommy or daddy what you tell me tonight, it's a secret, just between you and I."

I didn't really have any reason to not trust that she wasn't telling me the truth not to confide in her, so I began to talk. I talked and talked for an hour straight, expressing all of my thoughts and feelings without holding back. I began by telling her about this boy that I had a crush onto this very day,  and later on, I went into more serious topics.

"And sometimes my mommy hits me," I stated as I took a big gulp trying to hold back the vicious tears ready to stream down my cheeks.

After I said that the therapist stood up and gave me a big hug and told me that I did a wonderful job tonight.

The next morning, I get called into the office at school and there are two women standing there waiting for me. They restated word for word everything that I said to my therapist. I felt a big rush of dizziness as the upsetness took over my stomach.

"How could she tell them?" I thought to myself.

I trusted her and even though I didn't understand the severity of the things that I told her the night before, the simple fact was that she betrayed me.

As I grew older these betrayals changed my trustworthiness of others. I learned that trust is valuable. It affects everything. So to this very day, it is very hard for me to trust people, simply because I have been betrayed. Breaking someone's trust is like crumpling up a piece of perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it over but it's never going to be the same again.


Advanced Essay #1: Say Cheese

Introduction: The goal of my essay was for me to write about what I remember and reflect on my family and capturing the perfect moment. I wrote about how I hated that my parents took a bunch of pictures and now I appreciate the pictures they took. The area that I am most proud of is my last paragraph because I sum up everything with my reflection about taking the perfect photo. The area that I need improvement on is the connecting more scenes to my essay.


I had never looked forward to trips when I was younger. That all changed when my annual family trip was planned, and this year it was Mexico. This happened because the stars aligned and Drexel’s summer break lined up with my summer break. The morning of the trip, my brain was scattered everywhere trying to make sure we had everything together for the adventure we had waiting for us. While I am packing the suitcase, my sister Ellen was packing all of the cameras and equipment -  Polaroid, a tripod, and a DSLR. Going on a vacation with my family, you have to make sure you bring enough Polaroid refills. We almost used a pack in one day! Ten films would not work for this family, it wouldn't even last a day.

By the time we finished packing, it was 6:30 in the morning and our flight with American Airlines was at 10 am. As time went by, my stress level had gone down and my excitement had risen up. I couldn't wait to start the journey that I knew that I would have. We finally got to the airport, through TSA, and onto the plane. As soon as I sat down, I fell asleep and woke up in beautiful Mexico.

On the second day of the trip, my mom didn’t really want to go into the beautiful clear water of the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, she took so many of the same pictures and videos non- stop until the very last day of the trip. Which at the time, I thought it was pointless because she was just taking a lot of the same pictures. Once my parents learned how to take pictures or videos on their own, they stopped us when they saw something breath taking or beautiful, just to take one picture. Soon enough, we had to limit their pictures to  just enjoy our trip without being stopped every second. I told my mom no more pictures for now and to enjoy our time here because we don't see this is Philly. I knew that my parent’s just wanted something to remember these moments. On the other hand, I like to live in the moment and take pictures with my memory instead.  

During our third to last day in Isla Mujeres, my dad and I decided that both of us would go to the Selvatica Adventure Park, while my sister and my mom went to an outdoor museum. It took two fine fours to get to the place of adventure. When we finally got there, the photographer took numerous pictures of us holding two colorful birds before we started on our activity. The instructors took us really high up in the jungle. It looked similar to a jungle gym for grown-ups. Once the instructors hooked me into a harness, my heart started to racing unusually fast. My dad and I both waited for our turn together. I was on the right and my dad was on the left. The instructors told us to lay on something, similar to a bed, so he could hook us up to the wires. I shed tears of fear just at the thought of falling from 100 feet down to the jungle in mid-air. I was not ready and I wanted to back out, but my dad said it was too late to back out. My biggest fear was doing the Superman zip line, which is where we were in our stomach and the table from under us would drop. Afterward, it felt like I was flying and turned out to be the best thing I did in the whole trip. Sadly, the photographers took some embarrassing pictures of us. The photographers were moving the cameras around to get the perfect shoots. They end up taking about 125 pictures of my dad and I - so that number did not compare to the amount that my mom and dad took.

The next day, as a whole family, we wanted to go see the outdoor art sculptures. Before we got there, we took many stops here and there. My parents couldn’t get enough of the perfect view and took fifteen pictures of my sister and I at each stop, and my sister doing the same for my parents. We also had to ask strangers to take pictures for us as a family. I feel uncomfortable having to pose for a really long time. We finally get there and my mom wants us to take more pictures with most of all the art sculptures. She mom kept moving her phone around, spamming the camera button on her smartphone. Meanwhile, I just wanted to look around and take pictures here and there of the beautiful art. My parents never understood how taking a lot of pictures and staying in one spot is not my thing.

“No more pictures! This is the last picture,” I exhaustedly said.

“Take a picture, this is going to be the last picture,” said my mom.

Throughout this whole trip, it was all about taking pictures and making new memories with my family. It felt like the pictures were going on a never-ending loop. With my family, we can never just take one photo. There will always be someone looking the opposite direction of the camera. At the end of the day, there is always one perfect picture with all of us looking. And even though I didn't like taking so many pictures, I just appreciated that I can go to these places with my family.


Advanced Essay #1: Impatient for Patience

Intro

For this paper I really wanted the reader to understand and get a sense for my struggle with patience. I wanted to use scene that helped me to convey my struggle so that readers could relate to my problem. I am really proud of my scenes and the fact that they do help me to convey my struggle, although I should note that my reflection and main idea isn’t the strongest. I don’t know what I could do to improve it now, but that is definitely an area for improvement.

I sit down at the dining room table, with my brother across from me, to start a game of monopoly. I always suck at this game. I can never get enough properties to win and I always make the wrong trades. Just a week before I traded away my railroads for a monopoly while I playing with my mom. She won on that trade alone. Live and learn, you know?

But this time will be different. I just know it. It’s like when you walk out the door to school and part of you just knows that the day ahead won’t be enjoyable. I just knew that something was gonna happen, and I wouldn’t have to go bankrupt again.

I shake with excitement as the first dice rolls happen.

“You sure you want to do that,” I say as my brother tries to roll doubles to get out of jail instead of paying.
“Sure thing bro,” he responds as he roll doubles.

“What? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

This is how the beginning of the game goes. I manage to get more properties than he does, but his excessive landing on free parking and go give him two or even three times the amount I have. Even though properties are better to have in the early game than money, his stock of two less properties doesn’t make a difference.

“Welp, this is bad,” I murmur to myself. I need a plan, and I need one fast.

I look around the room as my brother rolls. The nice chandelier hanging from the middle of the room. The cabinet at the far end of the room. I look toward a painting hanging over my brother’s head. A gray boat sits on a peaceful lake. The women on the boat wait patiently for the fish to bite on their fishing poles.

If I am just as patient as them, and not rush, I will be fine. If those women get anxious, they won’t catch any fish. In the same way, if I get excited and anxious, I’ll make a mistake and lose the game.

Soon after, I make a well thought about trade to secure one side of the board. I now own that whole side, the most lethal side.

For the next couple of times around the board, my brother seems to only land on those properties. With my money growing and my brother’s shrinking, I know that this could be the turning point.

“Oh boy, here we go,” I think to myself as I crack a smile.

Throughout my entire life, I have struggled with patience. It is not one of my natural abilities. For example, I really wanted to win that monopoly game. I always get so excited when I play those type of games that my lack of patience often comes back to kill me.

When I was a lot younger, it was worse. I couldn’t wait for anything. When I was done shopping, I was done and I let my parents know it, often throwing fits until they agreed with me. These examples of my impatience are evident throughout my toddler and preteen years.

My grandparents loved to take me fishing. They had a campsite on a lake and I would go and stay with them for a week during the summer. My grandpa introduced me to fishing when I was eight. At first I loved it. The idea of catching a fish sounded amazing to my young, inexperienced mind. But I learned otherwise. I couldn’t stand fishing, and catching a fish didn’t help to improve my mood. I just didn’t have the patience to sit around all day waiting for some dumb fish to take the bait. I stopped fishing soon after.

My attempt at fishing helped me to recognize that I wasn’t as patience as I thought I was. It rocked my world. But after I thought about it some more, I realized something. For my entire life I have been athletic. I’ve been on championship soccer and baseball teams for most of my childhood. My parents have often said that I’m just naturally athletic. But I’m not naturally patient.

It suddenly hit me that I wanted to be someone that I wasn’t. I wanted to be better than myself. Like me and my struggle for patience, everyone is not born perfect. Everyone has the desire to be better than themselves, to grow and mature in many different areas. For me, that was patience. I really would love to be patience, and I’m sure there are many other people who want to grow, just like me. We all have our certain struggle, it’s human. But we have to at least try. Because if none of us try, the world wouldn’t be like it is today.


Advanced Essay #1: My Golden Path

Introduction

My goal while writing this paper was to collect my feelings as clear as possible on the paper. It is quite difficult for me to put most of what's inside of me into words to the point where the reader understands and feels the emotions I felt. My hopes for this piece now that it is complete is to receive feedback that will progress my writing for the future. Parts that I am most proud of in my writing include the description level I have reached in the process. As I revised my essay, reading the descriptive language I couldn't believe that it was I who wrote it. It felt great. The areas I can say I need improvement on other than getting better with capturing everything is to find ways to minimize my words and still include all of what I want my essays to have.


My Golden Path

They often say that everything happens for a reason. Bad always happens but later on, it benefits you somehow. Does it really in reality? Do you believe that everything that happens has a cause and an effect to it? You tell me. When was the actual last time something in your life happened for a good reason? When a tragedy happens in my life, I try my best to dig up those words of wisdom hiding deep in my mind to remind myself that it will eventually work out at the end. There is always a path you will find in whatever process you go through. Although people often ignore these sayings, I try to remember them as much as I can, it’s definitely a good way to keep myself going through the darkness surrounding my tunnel. With the time that passes, that dark becomes the light you spy at the end of your path, your path of greatness.

I lay my eyes on it every time I walk through that door, whether it is from school or work, it is there right in front of my soul staring back at me. I tell myself, it is more than just a painting hung up on a cream colored wall. Although it is something I can not exactly read or put into words, it seems to draw my full attention into every portion. The words, words of a kind and words of one and only one. I wish I actually knew what each letter represents, and what each word sounded like, or even what the phrase itself means. Is it even a phrase to begin with? I wish someday to understand the truth behind what it says and what it writes. The golden path the utterance follows gives me hope that I’ll find that it someday. The path to paradise — as they call it. I stare at it and questions rise as high as you are.

I’ll eventually find the answers, but I cannot seem to wait. The day every piece of your creation gets the chance to stare at it in a complete puzzle. For now, it’s  just one in infinity enigma slices to gaze upon and wonder about for as long as I live. Behind the path, written in the most inspiring style, I see darkness. The blackness that represents the confusion of this world. The same confusion I, myself, encounter. It is the murky pool I swim in as I attempt to find land — the golden path of letters on the same painting that is hung on the cream colored wall above me. It reminds me of the dark tunnels I’ve entered in my life, nevertheless it evokes me of that hope I hold onto when I need to find the light in those same tunnels.

One of the few ages I could remember in my childhood was nine. The number that came right before ten, and right after eight. It was my family’s third year living here in the United States. The sun was out bright, preparing to lay down for the rest of its day in the barely cloud filled blue sky, when my father left his workplace. Although my parents worked extremely hard, I remember they’d always make time for both my brother and I. On that same afternoon we decided to take a trip to the park for my bike lessons.

The grass was bright green as the sun spit its illuminating rays onto it. You can hear the screams that children let out as they ran around the entire playground as if it was their only happy place. From afar, I could hear my father give my young brother monkey bar lessons. The ground was a swamp filled with alligators and he was a monkey swinging from vine to vine to get to the opposite side.

“Don’t touch the ground, you are so close!” yelled my dad in our foreign language, Berber.

This seemed more like a happy place for my father than for my five-year-old brother.

I was having the time of my life attempting to accomplish such a skill, a skill of riding a bike which I often noticed with the children around me. We were all so incredibly busy enjoying the time we spent together that we didn’t seem to notice the tiny droplets that once blue sky let down upon us. Soon, all of the water the darkness above us held, was let out. The four of us ran to the nearest shield we could find — the slides. Although the weather was horrible and ruined what was all beautiful around us, the smiles remained on our faces. We laughed as we waited for the storm to pass. Water seized from attacking us and we began to walk home. We chatted along the golden path with the wet and cloudy scenery surrounding us.

With each step, the echo of a fire truck seemed to get closer. My brother made a comment about how ridiculously cool the trucks were and our lips spread even wider as we got closer to home. As soon as we turned the; street, we saw two small crowds both filled with people who looked at one thing and one thing only — our home. The big fire truck that once rushed past us, was stationed right in front of our house. The home we have lived in for our first three years in our new country, where we thought our lives would be much simpler. We, unfortunately, thought wrong, and the sad part is that there is no going back to our homeland. The one place where there was happiness around us no matter the situation.

Every time I seem to visit Algeria, I fall in love with it all over again. I am Algerian. Last time we, as a family, had a chance to walk on our beautiful grounds again was the summer that recently passed. We usually stay a month and I will admit that will never be enough. That experience was so incredibly memorable because it was my first time having to attend a traditional marriage since my toddler days. There were all types of beautiful traditional dresses, artifacts, food recipes, as well as actions that each have a meaning behind them.

As a whole, it was so astonishingly prepossessing and it was exactly what we needed after years of complicated obstacles my family faced in America. It made me think about my future and how special I’d want my wedding to be with the roots of where I came from. What an alluring sight it was to watch my family whom I haven’t ever met dance in the middle of the ballroom as more members around them clapped in pride. I hope to one day come back to the place that raises every last bit of happiness stored inside me, to experience all of the traditional pieces of art I grew up admiring. All of the contributions built who I am, and will continue to build me even being across the ocean.  

No matter how far I am I will never forget the family I have back home, along with the culture I grew up learning. Some may ask, haven't you spent ten years of your life in America, and only five in Algeria? Of course, I have lived here for most of my life, but I am incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to continue to visit my country. Notwithstanding the fact that Algeria is the art in myself that brings me pure and utter joy, it also gives me limitation to live my life the best I could here in America because after all that is the path that has been chosen for me, and I know it’ll lead to great things.  No matter how bumpy it might be, it’ll always be golden.


Advanced Essay #1: Kaitlyn Petroski

Introduction:
My main goal for this paper was to describe the confusion of a relationship with a parent that is separated from the family. My main tactic for achieving this was showing two scenes that completely contrasted with each other. In the end, I definitely could have improved on my reflection. This was the most difficult part of the essay to write, simply because I struggled a lot with how to write out my thoughts without rambling. I am, however, very proud of my scenes.

Advanced Essay:
My mom is a single mother who raised me and my half brother almost entirely by herself. Since I was 2 years old, we have a system where I only see my dad once a week, on Saturdays. My dad missed a lot when I was growing up, so to me, it seems like he doesn’t really know me at all.
On one average Saturday, I woke up, got ready for the day, then texted my dad to ask if he was picking me up. My mom reminded me to ask about a program at UArts. The tuition is $300, with a scholarship, and we wanted him to help pay.
A few hours later, my dad knocked on the door and we left. After chatting for awhile and catching up on the things that happened that week, I suddenly remembered the program.
I explained the whole thing and eagerly asked, “ So, can you help pay for it? You would only need to chip in a bit and pay like half, probably less.
“I don’t have any money.” he replied bluntly.
“Dad, I’m serious.”
“I am, too! Ask your Aunt Sharon, she’s made of money,” this is a tactic he’s been using since I was a little kid. Whenever he wanted to get out of buying me something he would say that.
Irritated, I said, “Okay, but she’s not my dad,” with finality, turned the radio volume up, and opened a book. It felt as though I shut a heavy door between us, even though he was sitting right next to me.
The ride felt like it would never end, but an hour later, it was over. I didn’t say a word, not even singing along to the radio like I normally would.
It may seem like I was overreacting, but my dad has been trying to get out of providing for me for my entire life. When my parents first split up, it was because of an argument over money; instead of buying groceries, my dad bought a car.
Situations like this aren’t uncommon between me and my dad, which is something I’ve noticed between other kids who have separated parents as well. The relationship with one of the parents is always weird, it feels like it should be one way, but it’s actually the other way. I’m always told to respect my elders, which includes my dad. In my case, I find it difficult to respect someone who doesn’t take me seriously to the point where we can barely have conversations, but I still look up to him and have fun when he picks me up for the day.
The first time I went on a roller coaster was with my dad, and it is one of my favorite experiences ever. Sounds of summer filled the air, and I wasn’t paying attention to any of it.
I turned to my dad, “I have to use the bathroom,” and started to walk down the steps.
He grabbed my shoulder, turning me around, “No, you don’t, you’re just scared.”
I huffed, crossed my arms, and stood there. By this point the last ride was over and the line was moving again. When we got to the top, we chose a seat. After the safety bar lowered, the ride lurched forward and began it’s trek up the first hill.
We got to the top and I looked out over the whole amusement park. We were so high up, it felt like we were observers of the world, rather than a part of it.
The split second when I forgot that I was 110 feet off the ground disappeared almost immediately. When the ride started barrelling down the hill, I gripped my seat until my knuckles turned white, while my hair was whipped around my face.
A grin spread across my face and I turned to my dad. As soon as he looked back his signature chili pepper bandana flew off his bald head.
The ride threw us around, went up and down hills, and through loops. Everybody around was screaming in excitement, but I was just laughing.
The ride stopped and we got off,
“I guess your head is gonna get a tan, too, now,”
He laughed and touched his head, he started to speak when two people ran up to us. One was holding chili pepper bandana.
These two experiences are drastically different, but both display the interactions and the complexities within them. It’s like a rollercoaster in the way that one week can be completely carefree and fun and the next week is extremely tense and difficult to understand.
Whether your parents are together or not, there are always going to be good moments and there are always going to be bad moments. When it comes to separated parents, however, the bad moments are amplified. The negative interactions are much more intense, more is at stake when it happens in a separated family. The system of relationships within the family is so bent up, shaky, and twisted to begin with that when something goes even slightly wrong it seems like everything will go crashing down.

Moving Isn't The Easy Part

​    
Introduction

     In my essay I talked about how my life changed when I had to move across the sea to united states. I also talked about the hardships I went through. How I had to adapt to the new nature. My biggest goal in my essay was to prove how hard it is to adapt to new environment  and everyone makes it look easy because they don't want to seem struggling.  I want to improve on my descriptions. Im proud of the part where I tel about my grandpa. 
Essay:
         Moving isn’t easy. I had never imagined moving into a new home when I was little, but moving across the sea to a new place was a bit shocking to me. I’ve always thought that my life started here and it will keep going until I become older, get my own place and have a family. Living in my country; Bangladesh, we had our own house built the way we wanted. It was really our place. We didn’t have to pay rent or anything except for the bills of the house, so we really didn’t have a reason to move to another place. After living in Bangladesh for ten years of my life, I had to move to the United States all of the sudden and it was really difficult. I had to leave a lot of my family members and friends back where I was originally from. All of the memories that I have with my family and friends became distant, and we  traveled  to somewhere with empty memories. 
     The one specific piece I miss the most is a photograph that my uncle got for me when he went to Khulna. The piece of artwork that is on a rectangle piece of canvas, with four black triangles on each corner . The artwork is painted mostly greenish, blueish, and brown radiant color, with some white.From the bottom middle to the end of the right side, there is a wooden bridge that starts and keeps going straight until it turns slightly, It kept going and making it look like it goes on and ner ends.  is’t covered by the dark and light green bushes of wild leaves. It reminds of  the smell of fresh leaves. It reminded me of all the leaves in my garden. The wooden path looks like different logs glued together to make a path for people to walk on. The wooden path would smell like damp wood that kept getting wet by the bluish water underneath of the wooden path. The fresh smell of the water from the small creek that runs, from the center of the right hand side to the half way through the middle of the left hand side looked elegant. The fresh water from the creek made me imagine how it would feel if I cool against my hand. There's another tree next to the creek on the dirt part that seems to be covered with the wild leaf.  The wooden path seems to be capturing the attention when someone looked into the art work. The wooden path seemed that it was  endless. The white color seems to be the bubbles in the water that is running down from the creek.It’s a really special photograph to me. It’s special to me because he specifically brought it for my grandpa when he came back from Khulna. When I saw the photograph I fell in love with it right away. My grandpa saw how much I really liked the painting so Before he died he told me I can have the photograph. That’s the only thing I have left that reminds me of my grandpa. So it’s a really special photograph to me.  He died 6 months after we moved to united states. He was in the hospital when we first came to united states. Not only did we just come to united states and didn’t understand anything but we also had to get through my grandpa's funeral. I remember the time when he told me that I can have the painting. He was lying  on the hospital bed while I was sitting on the chair waiting for my mom to come pick me up. He just woke up from a nap. I asked him “how are you”  He looked at me and smiled and that just made my  day. He than said " you remember the photograph you always liked that your uncle got for me." "Yeah" I said. "Well you wanna keep it" 
he said " you're kidding, I know you like that photograph too , you won't give it to me" 
"you can have it" he said. "Really? oh my god thank you" I almost cried. Then couple of day after that he died which was really hard for my family. Coming to somewhere new and going through this is really hard. 
 
       It was hard moving to a new place that I don’t know anything about this; the new land. I barely spoke any English, so it was hard to communicate with people. When we first landed in New York, we had so many problems talking to people and get through security. Everything was foreign to us and we didn’t know where anything was. It took us 2 hours to get everything together and get out of the airport. Although I did know some words, it didn’t help because it couldn't help me make full sentences nor communicate towards others.
When we moved to Philadelphia, we settled in my aunt's house for 2 weeks. It was hard living in someone's house for that long.  I felt like I didn’t really have a choice in what I was doing there. Meeting cousins that I never met before was an new experience. They spoke English while I didn’t know any, so I basically just listened to them and didn’t know how to reply back to them. 

       Moving to a new country wasn’t the easiest transition in my life. But I knew from the beginning that I had to hold on and let this crazy moment in my life have it’s way. I knew that if I just let life do it’s thing and not worry about everything  that I left behind then I can get through that phase faster. 
   

Advanced Essay #1: Andrew Rodebaugh

Introduction:


For my paper I was talking about a scary situation that I was going through this year. I was trying to communicate the fear that me and my family had when dealing with this situation. I hope I was a little funny also in my essay. I think I could have improved on describing a little more like Harlem and Boubou did in their essays.


Essay:


My life is pretty normal… well compared to most people like me. See I have a heart condition a super rare and dangerous one (not to brag). It is kind of complicated to explain but in basic terms, my heart does not include a left ventricle. As you may assume that’s not very good, to say the least. The doctors had to make my right ventricle of my heart to do the jobs of my lazy, non-existent left ventricle which takes more energy and in turn has its own set of problems. Sure I cannot walk up the stairs without wearing out (stairs are tough... don’t judge) and thank God I hate sports because that just does not work out well with me and my heart. But I am rarely unable to do what I want to do which makes me feel really lucky.


   It was not until very recently that I had a problem that was long term that I had to worry about a health problem. See what happened was that I was at my Church’s Bible Study™ with my older brother Will and we were talking and having a lovely time until suddenly my left foot started to shake uncontrollably… up and down… up and down. I had no clue what was going on… my first thought was that either I did not hydrate well enough which was the cause of 99.9% of my issues so I politely asked my brother if he could grab me some water and to text my Mom that this was happening. I tried to do this trying not to cause a big deal out of it. They knew me all my life and they have seen/helped me through this situation so I probably should have informed them that this was happening but of course I would have never guessed how long term this would be. Well, my Dad came to pick me up and he noticed that my leg was shaking so he called Mom to see what we should do. We ended up going home which did not last long so I went to the Emergency Room at around 11 pm (I know thrilling) and stayed at the hospital overnight. That night answered nothing… very encouraging to me.


   The shaking happened almost once a month and before it happens I would get super angry and I would not be myself. I would have a low tolerance for even the smallest things, yelling and stomping. And talk a little too much being honest to people about the things that I was annoyed about relating to them or that moment, in turn, making them really upset with me. And sometimes I would just shut down not being able to respond to other people. I was sent to the ambulance for the first time ever with my blood sugar very low which was the first of many false triggers to what supposedly caused these incidents which were annoying going from specialist to specialist not really listening to me. My fear got even greater about what was going on.


Fear is a weird thing it can keep us alert or shut us down. Make us appreciate things more or make us angry. It can make us faster or slow us down. Fear can be made up or be real. Fear can be exaggerated or not exaggerated enough. It depends on who you are and what is going on. I had a lot of scary situations in my life for me and my parents which they had helped me in life learning more about myself but hurt me at least temporary. This situation was it was a scary situation that I did not know what would happen to me and how serious it would it be.


Now the shaking has died down and I am not as scared as I was before. I stopped being constantly angry at people because I know that they are just trying to help me through life with these situations going on. They still have not figured out why the problems were occurring and may never know. But I feel safe now knowing that people around me will do anything to help me.


Advanced Essay #1: Fear Itself

Introduction:

The goal of this paper was to attempt to analyze the causes of fear and how different people experience it. Fear is a big part of my life and I wanted the reader to really consider how they deal with their own fears. I'm most proud of my descriptive language. It provides a nice cover up for the actual writing and analysis, which I feel needs a great deal of improvement.



Fear is an extremely powerful force. It can motivate people to do things that they never thought they could. It can be used to manipulate people into acting against their own self interest. People tend to think of fear as something negative. They see it as an obstacle to overcome. These people want to control their fear, which can lead to them taking massive risks. Other people use their fear as a crutch. They allow their fear to control them. Ideally, people should find a healthy balance between these two extremes. However, everyone has unique experiences with fear that constantly evolve over time, causing their perspective to change.

When I was younger, I was quite an adventurous child. I would spend most of my days outside or running around with friends. I was also quite accident-prone and would injure myself on a pretty regular basis, amassing a marvelous collection of bruises and scrapes. But, it never stopped me. One day, while playing with two friends in my backyard, one of them proposed that we climb the massive pine tree that sits at the back of the yard. This, of course, was a horrible idea. I had climbed plenty of trees before but never one this tall, mainly due a strong dislike of heights. However, on this occasion I decided to “face my fear” and I followed my friends up. That, of course, was a horrible idea. The ascent was long and arduous. Needles clawed at my face while sap adhered itself to every available surface. Undeterred, I pressed on. I was doing surprisingly well until I reached a large gap in the branches. As I paused, I made a fatal error. I looked down. I froze as my legs locked and my hands attempted to asphyxiate the branch upon which all of my hopes lay. I slipped suddenly, hanging from one hand. For a moment, all was still. Unfortunately, my hand betrayed me, sending me plummeting towards the ground.

I would never even think of doing something like this today. I am terrified of heights and it’s just not worth it. Honestly, I wouldn’t have done it then unless my friends were there to encourage me. People in general are afraid of being left out. It’s in our nature as social creatures,

and that can cause us to do ridiculous things like climb giant trees or more dangerous things with more severe consequences. These opposing fears are at constant war with one another. On one hand, one is afraid of the risk. On the other, one fears missing out.

Despite this, facing one’s fears is sometimes beneficial. Fears can be irrational, such as a fear of public spaces or a fear of birds. They don’t have much of a basis in reality and more in our own suspicions. However, we have them anyway because our brains concoct these odd fantasies to rationalize our suspicions and to reinforce them. That bird isn’t going to fly down and peck your eyes out, so you make up a scenario in which it does and convince yourself that it’s true. These fears are shaped by one’s personal experiences. In my experience, I don’t like leaving the house. However, it’s kind of unavoidable. So I try and face this fear by going for long walks in the woods alone.

One chilly winter afternoon, I was on another walk. I had been out for a while, exploring the meandering trails. I was so absorbed in my own thoughts, that I didn’t notice, the sudden lack of light until it was too late. Sometime during my walk, the sun decided to clock out early. I quickly turned around and tried to outrun the dark, to no avail. The night closed in and I was lost in the darkness. I stumbled blindly down what I thought was the path for what seemed like an eternity until the ground fell out from under me and slid down into oblivion, only just avoiding the half frozen river and a guaranteed case of hypothermia. At this point, the path didn’t even exist. I sat next to the water to pick up the pieces of my brain, eventually finding the will to use my legs again. With no other options, I followed the faint reflection of the moon on the water and hoped the current would take me in the right direction.

As if it isn’t obvious, I made it out alright. Even though this happened, even though I already didn’t want to go out in the first place, I still walk in the woods. An important aspect of fear is that there are two different kinds of fear. There are rational fears, like heights or bears, and there are irrational fears, like leaving the house or staircases. One must recognize that some fears are to be faced and others are to be acknowledged and respected. Bravery is not a complete disregard for fear, it’s the ability to tell the difference between a rational and irrational fear. I’m not saying I’m brave for walking in the woods a few times a week, but that is my own way of facing an irrational fear. When one finds the middle ground between blatant ignorance and crippling neurosis, then one can move on.

Advanced Essay #1: Art and Approval

Intro

For this paper my goals were to show the perspective of me wanting to have an art career with the approval of my family. I also wanted to include more reflections and avoid having a passive voice. I’m most proud of the descriptions in my story since I put a lot of effort into creating a clear image of what I was describing. To improve in the future I would add more reflections and include another memory to make my message easier to understand.


Art and Approval

When I was in elementary school my favorite subject was art. I’m not sure what drew me to it. Maybe it was the ability to brush my feelings onto paper or perhaps I enjoyed the feeling of pastels smudged onto my fingers after working on a piece. Pastel crayons were one of my favorite mediums to work with. The crayons were soft and velvety, making strikes and swirls across the page almost effortless. Pastels not being stiff like other mediums allowed for more unrestrictive expression.  

Every year my school had a grade by grade art contest and show. Each grade got assigned a medium to work with for the contest and my grade at the time was assigned pastels. My mouth found itself turned into a grin at the news. This would be an opportunity to beat Reagan, one of my classmates who not only won this competition every year but the yearbook cover contest as well. Winning the competition this year would not only prove how serious I was about art to my teachers and classmates, it would also show my family that this was passion they needed to support.

I decided to not plan my art and to make it up as I go. I turned a light blue pastel onto its side and rolled it onto my paper causing splotches of blue on the paper. The patches of blue with the off-white paper peeking through reminded me of the sky minutes before a downpour. I then knew I wanted my drawing to be scenery of nature. Using different shades of brown pastels I made a smooth mound in the bottom corner of the page that represented the ground. On the bottom of the page, I created a lake that was a slightly darker blue than the sky and had gentle ripples on its surface. I finished by creating long strokes of different shades of green onto the ground, forming blades of grass.

Weeks later after I submitted my work I found myself at the art show with my parents. My grade’s art was posted on a hallway wall. In the center of the wall was a piece with the winner’s name under it in bold letters: Reagan. Disappointment uncoiled inside of me. My dad noticed my enthusiasm turn sour and put his hand on my head while looking down at me.

“Well… yours was my favorite.”  My heart beamed at his words. Although I lost the art competition I always won my family’s support and I knew I could count on them for approving my life choices.

My family always knew I liked art. They never blinked an eye at me taking art camp over the summer or me continuing art as an elective in middle school. They didn’t even flinch when I said I wanted to be an artist when asked what did I want to be when I grow up. When I put my words into action, that’s when they got nervous.

I was in the backseat of my dad’s car. The road was clear for the most part with the exception of a stray car here and there. My dad, deciding he could give some of the attention he was putting towards the road to me, turned down the radio and looked up into his rear view mirror.

“Have you given any thought as to what you want to be when you’re older?” My eyebrows furrowed in thought, although I already knew the answer.

“An animator.” I said it with no hint of a doubt slithering into my words.

“Oh, so you want to work on Disney movies?” My dad was taken aback. This was the first time my answer to this common question changed from “artist” to “animator”. It was becoming clear that I was becoming more determined about pursuing an art career. The more it became transparent that my passion wasn’t just a hobby the more worried my family got for my future.

“Uh, well I wasn’t thinking working for Disney exactly.” I ran my hands over the grooves of the car door in thought. “I really want to make a cartoon one day and maybe work at Cartoon Network.”

“And how will you do that?”

“There’s a college called CalArts that I’m interested in.”

“CalArts? Where’s that?”

“California” There was a pause before he spoke.

“That’s so far away… are you sure about this?” I hesitated before my answer. This was the first time I was unsure about my art.

“Yes.” That was the end of the conversation and my dad’s attention returned back to the road. I knew he was only worried for me, but I was not yet familiar with my plans for the future being met with doubt. From there on I questioned my love for art and how far I was willing to go to so I could pursue it. I proved to my family how serious I was about art but in exchange, I received uncertainty in my life choices.


Advanced Essay #1: Sleep tight

IntroductionSleep tight touches on the ideas surrounding childhood. This piece is meant to make the reader think about changing perspectives through growing up and the things that alter excitement. This idea came from writings of scenes from life, where I instantly started to think about the things that made up my childhood experience. The two scenes that were chosen were some of the immediate scenes I thought about with how adults comfort us, and then the change to where we need the comfort of adults to decimate self consciousness. I’m proud of how the scenes loosely connect to the theme I was trying to build in abstract ways that make the reader think. As far as areas for improvement, I wish I could’ve gotten my ideas out more clearly in the conclusion to fully make the theme translate to the reader.


Sleep tight

I woke up christmas morning of first grade and snuck down the stairs at 6AM. I carefully took each step in order to not cause a creak, which would wake up my parents. With a thump, I saw my brothers curls peak through the darkness. A light flashed as my brother turned on his little blue flashlight to reveal the outline of everything in the living room. He scanned the room with his light and stopped in the center. The line of light revealed the wooden toy market that was at the top of my wishlist. I couldn’t help but let out a screech. We scurried over to the market, pulling out the small green containers in the front where toy food would sit.

“Where’s the food?” asked my brother.

“Flash it towards the back,” I replied.

My brother flashed the light on the back of the market to reveal boxes full of toy food. We immediately unpacked the boxes and poured them into the green containers. For the next hour we played with the wooden food kits that velcro together and cut apart.

A nice toy food breakfast was prepared for our parents. Soon after, my mom walked slowly down the stairs just having woken up.

“What are you guys doing up so early? And already opening your presents?” she asked.

“Mama we made you breakfast!” I gave her a smile that filled my face.

“Oh hunny thank you.” She responded as she pretended to gobble up what we had prepared.

I was so excited that my mom had enjoyed what we made for her. The simple childhood innocence of the belief that she would always be happy with our play, when as I look back I see the how adults play along with the innocent fun. In reality, she would never act like she disliked what we had made. As more growth occurred this innocence grew up into more self consciousness and inability to enjoy as many of the smaller things.

My mom walked to the left corner of my room and switched the light off. She then walked towards my bed and pulled the sheets to my shoulders, kissed me goodnight, and said,

“Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“But Mama what if they do bite?”

“Then you call me up and I will scare them away.”

“Okay, stay outside my room until you see that I fell asleep,” I

replied in fear that my mother would leave me alone before I fell asleep.

I felt my eyes getting heavy and my body start to relax. As soon as my eyes fully shut, my anxiety set it and I shot straight up from my bed.

“Mom!”

I heard her voice lightly assure me that she was still there. Then I could relax and rest again. As soon as my eyes fell heavy and closed again, I heard the hallway light switch off. My body jolted up once again,

“MOM.”

Her voice arose again and assured me of her presence. At this point I was so tired my body fell right back into to my bed. Once again, my eyes fell heavy and this time stayed shut through the night.

This feeling of fear in falling asleep alone lasted until 5th grade, when I finally realized my mother would never leave me alone in the house and that she couldn’t scare away the bed bugs any more than I could. My anxiety surrounded the innocence of not wanting to be left alone because I wasn’t big enough to fight whatever might come in during my sleep. This fear was influenced by more self consciousness as I had grown up from the cloud of enjoying every small event.

Childhood, comfort, innocence, growth, all often come together. New experiences for a child enable growth out of comfort. As a child grows, they often embrace it as “I’m a big kid.” This growth decimates the innocence. The innocence we as older people often long for. The innocence that enables enjoyment in all of the little things we still wish we could enjoy. The ability to be free with comfort and others are elements of childhood that we look back on and question the ability to receive again. The ability to be free and comfortable with ourselves is an ability few possess past childhood.  This is the comfort of childhood, where your ideas and actions are always sweet, and not an annoyance. This comfort doesn’t grow until our ideas could be shot down. The ability to look past self consciousness and into self comfort is an ability many of us wish we continued to possess. It’s an ability I wish to still posses.


Advanced Essay #1: Pittsburgh Vacation

Introduction: My goal of the paper is to write more than I usually do, the part that I am proud of is the third paragraph, the areas for improvement in the future is the reflection.

Pittsburgh Vacation

This past  summer, I went on a trip to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is also a city in the state of pennsylvania located just west of Philadelphia.This trip was a summer camp which focused on giving the campers an introduction to civil engineering as I have an interest in this area. 

I received the information about this camp from my ILP program. After finding out more information about the camp and the program, I told my mother about my interest in this program and how I wanted to participate. My mom was very happy that I wanted to join the summer camp in Pittsburgh because she wanted to go to Pittsburgh for a long time.  My brother was also interested in the program too. After speaking to her, she gave her permission for me to register for the camp. We decided we would go to Pittsburgh together. My big brother would go with us as well.

The camp that I joined in Pittsburgh was about a famous architectural building called “Fallingwater”. Fallingwater is a house that was designed in 1935 by an architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. It was designed in the modern and organic architectural style.Fallingwater is surrounded by a forest with a river going under the house. The house was built with no air conditioning, but it had an opening to the river under the house that was used to let the natural wind come into the house. The most different thing between Fallingwater and American houses are the windows. The windows in Fallingwater are much bigger than the normal American house. Fallingwater makes you want to go outside rather than stay in the house because of the beauty that surrounds the house.

The summer camp was 7 days long. We planned to arrive at the Pittsburgh three days before the start of summer camp. We arrived early to allow us to explore this new place. We traveled there by Greyhound bus and it took approximately 51/2 to get to our destination. The bus experience went well until one of the windows in the bus broke, but we still arrived to our destination safety. After we arrived, we took another bus to get to the house we would stay for three days. We then went to the nearest store to buy food for dinner and came back. The second day, we went to The Andy Warhol Museum, and to a restaurant to eat our lunch. After lunch, we went back and wait for next day.

The first day that summer camp started, one of the teachers picked us up drove us to Fallingwater. It took 1 hour to from the place we were staying in Pittsburgh to get to Fallingwater. After we arrived, my mom joined a tour to Fallingwater and  after the tour she went back to the place she was staying. Then I went to the meeting place for the summer camp, which was High Meadow, our living place in the summer camp.  The first day of the camp, we introduced ourselves to each other.   All of the students were in grades 10 to 12 grade.  At Fallingwater we draw some scenes with all of our 5 senses. We drew a scene outside the Fallingwater and one in the inside. The outside scene is a road that was covered with green plants on two sides.  The inside one that I drew is of a living room inside of  Fallingwater. After we finished drawing, the sky was turning dark, so we went back to the High Meadow to have our dinner.

On the second day, we went to a workshop which is near the High Meadow to make glasses. We needed to make the glasses using paper. The teacher taught us to sketch before you started making any item. The glasses that I made was a pixel MLG glasses, was based on a video game. Then we went back to Fallingwater once again to draw the outside of the Fallingwater right after our lunch. Since this is a civil engineering summer camp, it will involve a lot of drawing, especially drawing architecture. After that, we had an activity where we needed to make a shelter for an 1 inch big bear figure in the area of the road that I drew in the first day that can protect from other animals. We only got 1 jund of sticky, and you could get material around us like leafs, sticks, rocks… so I built a shelter in the middle of two big two rocks, I use some stick to hold in the under of the house.

On the third day, we went to Norman Robert Foster’s 1900s living place where it has become a museum, Norman Robert Foster is the person who designed the HSBC Building.  We had a tour guide who explained everything about the house. After that we headed outside. It was an open place where we needed to draw again. We stayed there almost the whole day.

In the fourth day, we started at some paperwork, we needed to draw and measure some square-based 3-D shape, the teacher taught us how to drew it in 2D and 3D in the paper. Then we drew a fruit that chosen by teacher and I got a pepper, we needed to drew the top, the side and the cutted side after our lunch. After the dinner, we went back to Fallingwater to got an idea in there for making the concrete in the next day.

In the fifth day, we made our own concrete the whole day, every persons’ concrete was in a cuboid shape, so my design was making a square hole in one of the corner of the cuboid and in the middle of every square hole, there had a cuboid column in it. It liked making the concrete by your own.

In the last two days we had a project that we redesigned an small open area to a photostopping spot that it can take in the rainy and snowy day, it’s like a small shelter, my design was making a 45 degree ceiling to let the rain pour it in one way and four cuboid column in each corner of the ceiling, we have the time for design is a whole day. Then we presented the whole summer camp in your own work and experience with all your assignment to the director of Fallingwater.

After the summer camp, my big brother and I took greyhound bus back to philadelphia and go back home. I have a really good experience in this summer camp, because engineering is my favourite things and the experience in the summer camp, it will be useful for my future.

Advanced Essay #1: The Fall of a Giant

  My goals for this paper are that people read this and go, "wow that taught me something interesting." I want the reader to feel as if they learned something from reading this essay. I feel as if the parts that I think will achieve this, and the parts that I am proud of are the description part. The description part and the story part compliment each other part. However, regarding the reflection part of this essay, I don't feel like I did too well on. This is because I always had the thought that the reflection was up to the reader to interpret, and I think that made me less interested in writing that part.

Falling down from what seemed like an immeasurable height. It seemed like the end for me. This would ruin my whole day. Gravity was David and I was Goliath. So you’re probably wondering how I got into this situation. Well it all started in the autumn of ‘17.

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” said my alarm clock. This morning was as ordinary as every other morning this week. The early morning sunlight creeped through the windows in my room enveloped by darkness. It was nearing my favorite time of year. Winter. It was still autumn however, meaning it got dark early and late in the day, but it was also hot and when it rained, it was humid. Disgusting. I hated that feeling when it rained and it was hot. That’s why I’m more of an inside person. Inside, you didn’t have to worry about dying because there are less things that could kill you. You didn’t have to worry about weather because you were constantly incubated inside of an air conditioned or heated house.

The contents of my room rarely changed. A mahogany wardrobe that held almost all my clothes. A bookshelf with 5 shelves full of books, all of which I’ve read. A wooden desk which I’m pretty sure was made of fake wood, and on top of that, a computer. Oh, and of course my bed which I was sleeping on. I had a very comfortable bed, to say the least. My bed sheets were made of a material which I did not know about, so I cannot brag about how good it is. It was very soft however. This made it difficult to get up out of bed, and often times I would stay in bed for an extra 10-15 minutes. To combat this, instead of waking up at 6 in the morning, I woke up at around 5:45. The top most bedsheet was just a blanket, with a giant bear on it. Sort of like a portrait of a bear, but it looked directly at you. I called it the bear blanket. The bear blanket was a gift, and a curse.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” exclaimed my alarm clock, yet again. At this point in time, I had decided that I would wake up and stop being a lazy bag of meat. I went through my usual morning ritual of taking a shower, brushing my teeth, making my bed, and of course, wearing clothes. As I recheck everything I need for school for that day, I start to zip up my plain white book bag. I go downstairs and start my trek through the front door. One foot steps forward. Another follows in it’s wake. My calculations were wrong. My footing was off, and one of my feet slipped forward in front of me.

“Oh golly, oh my!” I thought to myself, in the short time I had. I was now falling. I tried grabbing for anything around me to stop me from falling, but the snowy white railing was not doing it’s job. Or at least I didn’t grip it hard enough. Falling down from what seemed like an immeasurable height. It seemed like the end for me. This would ruin my whole day. Gravity was David and I was Goliath. Goodbye cruel world. I fell about 2 steps and cried for the rest of the way on the trolley to school. That day I failed my math test.

The importance of what happens to you during the day is honestly one of the most significant things that can influence your decisions during the day. In this current story, the main character goes throughout his day and one fatal event affects his day. The main idea of this story is that whatever influences a person to make a certain decision can have many factors. Meaning there could be a lot of factors and you shouldn’t really jump to conclusions as to why they made a decision. The main character fell down the stairs and this influenced the main characters choices that they made on the math test. As a result, the main character failed his math test. This whole story could be perceived as an allegory representing how people assume other people’s intentions without taking into account other factors. Factors like their personal lives, struggles, and experiences. Those factors and more are what really influence a person’s decisions throughout the day and the choices that they make.


Advanced Essay #1: A Duck on a Pond

Introduction:
The goal of my paper was for me to remember and describe what it’s like becoming older and how society and peer pressure changes you. I wanted the reader to remember who they were as a child as well. The child we are can sometimes fade and we forget about them, but at our root, that child is still there. The part I’m most proud of is the symbols I created with rubber ducks and childhood. I could try to improve my reflection but overall I’m proud of this essay. 

A few days ago, I was cleaning my room and under my bed, I found a small rubber duck. I brushed off the dust on the duck, I had forgotten where I got it from or that I even had rubber ducks. The rubber duck is smaller than a pill bottle. It has a paint splatter pattern covering its body, it's not just yellow but covered in blue, red and orange paint splatters. It's so simple in its design and as I looked at it more and more, I began to remember the first time I encountered these bath toys. 
When I was 7 or 8, I went to the movies with my mom, at the time my parents began their separation, my mother was worried that I would become some sort of depressed teen because I’m so young and the divorce would have too large of an effect on me. The movies were my mom’s way to have fun and forget about everything that bothers you.
“We have about twenty minutes until the movie starts, so how about we go to the concession stand and get some popcorn?” my mom said.  I looked up at her and nodded. I followed her with my hands in my coat pockets scratching my fingers against my jacket creating a little noise only I can hear. My mother and I stood in the line, she pulls out money from her purse and begins to count it. I look around the theatre, noticing the flashy design on the fur floors, I see kids running around the small arcade in the theatre entrance. In the corner of my eye I notice a small flashing light, it's coming from a crane game. My mother turns towards me and notices me looking at the game.
“Do you want money to play?” my mother asks.
“Is it okay?” I reply.
“Of course it's okay.” She hands me three crinkled one dollar bills and I walk towards the crane game. The game is a large red box with a banner that says “Winner Every Time” in large, gold, cursive font. I insert the first dollar into the slot. I look into the case noticing the game only has brightly colored rubber ducks in different costumes. I move the joystick over the pit of ducks and press the small red button. The crane delves into the pit of gold and picks up a single duck. I grab the toy from the receptacle below. It's a duck with a cowboy hat. My mom walks over with a small popcorn bucket and two sodas. 
“Good job kid, do you like him?” I hold the rubber duck in my tiny, chubby hands and begin to laugh. This rubber duck looked so dumb and the design was lazy yet it made me happy. I felt warm and safe. I was so happy and carefree when I was younger like nothing could hurt me. I was okay with my chubby exterior and my huge tooth gap. Everything was easy when I was young, I couldn’t hurt anyone or myself. I was allowed to dream as big or as small as I wanted. All I worried about was getting as many ducks as I could.  
I was this little ugly duckling who just wanted to fly and didn’t care about what other people thought. When you're young you're not afraid to show who you are, you're oblivious to society or even know what society is.  When you get older you feel like you constantly need to be in this defensive state because everything is trying to bring you down. You can spread your wings when you're young and fly as much as you want. But then people make you realize that you can’t fly and they clip your wings.
Eventually, I got more and more ducks. They distracted me from everything that was going on around me, whenever I was sad or angry, I went upstairs to my small blue bedroom and pulled out the plastic bin holding my ducks. No worries, no one to impress, the only person to make happy was me. When I was about 11 or 12, toys became lame and kids my age got rid of anything that seemed too childish and I was one to follow the crowd. So, I threw out everything too “kiddie.” The last thing I gave away was that bin of ducks. My happy memories fled from my mind and all I could remember was all the pain I felt. I became this self-conscious teen and kept changing myself even if I didn’t want to. I went into this numb state of mind. 
During one summer, my sister and my mom went to a carnival. I stayed back, fearing to be around too many people, the yelling, and the screaming and having to deal with flashing lights, the very thought made me sick. After a few hours, my sister and my mom returned home.
“How was the carnival?” I asked.
“Basic, it was fun though.” My sister sat on the couch immediately pulling out her phone and began to type away. 
“ I had fun and I wish you came, but we did win you something.” My mom unzipped her large black purse and pulled out two ducks. One of the ducks was the paint splatter duck and the other duck was a white duck with blue snowflakes covering its body. “Hope you like them.” She handed me the ducks, and my slender hands held them. As I held the ducks, these rubber useless toys, I was reminded of the wonder that I once knew. I had lost myself and forgot about this child I once was.  I’m an ugly duckling on his own who forgot how to fly and just remembered how.

Advanced Essay #1: Can we really help someone who is in pain?

Introduction:

Goals that I had for my paper was to really be able to include all the components into my story effectively and evenly. And to have a balance of everything, the descriptive scenes, reflection, and large idea. I think that parts that I am most proud of would be the whole process of editing and revising my essay. It really changed the whole flow of my essay from the beginning and I think that the improvements that I made, really helped convey my message. Some areas for improvement for the future would have to be to decrease the amount of words that I wrote. I wrote a lot and at first I had 2000 words and I erased and changed it until 1000 and even though it’s way more than the maximum, I still need to improve on this.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t do anything right. Being silent and listening was all that I could ever do. The pain ached from the inside and out, puncturing holes into my heart. The feeling of remorse and sorrow poured out of my body out in the form of tears. I remember that heartstopping moment, it felt like my whole world was getting flipped and tossed around.

I was in history class when I got the text from my best friend, Michelle.

“I can’t stop shaking.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”  I started typing at soaring speed.

“I can’t talk right now.” She texted back.

But I was persistent on getting a response. As time passed, I felt myself sink down lower into my seat.

My thoughts started a violent and gory war in my head, the sword were her words that cut me and the blood were the tears that followed. My eyes stayed glued to my phone.

My friends noticed how I was behaving. They fed me the words that were meant to comfort. I could see the disappointment on their faces when I would look up and ignore them.

“Tell us what’s wrong,”

“What happened?”

“Please tell us.”

Their words went in through one ear and out through the other. I sat there with my thoughts, what should I do if it’s something bad? Am I really her best friend if I can’t help her? I saw my phone flickered on.

“My baby cousin…. my mom called me,” She paused between texts,“H- he’s dead...”

I felt my whole body slowly close in on itself. My jaw dropped and the tears followed and fell down my face with no control. I ran out the door of my class and straight into the bathroom.

I called her and she picked up right away.

“Michelle… Are you okay? I  am so so sorry. How did it happen?” I said, as I thought to myself, should I have not asked how it happened?

“I can’t do this right now.” She said, I could hear that she was crying uncontrollably.

I heard knocks on the bathroom door knowing that it was my friends that ran after me. They were calling my name and telling me to come out. But I ignored them once again.

I knew that whatever I would say to her right now wouldn’t be helpful. It would just be a bunch of words that mean nothing. I gave her as much time as she needed to explain everything. As I sat on the window sill, listening to my best friend and crying.

She was feeling useless as much as I was. Feeling powerless to do anything to help destroys and destructs you from inside out. You feel this automatic anger and hate yourself because you’re not doing your best. You start to shut out everyone who cares about you and start to isolate yourself from who is “trying to help.” The worst part is not understanding and lying. Simply saying the words, “I understand what you’re going through,” can deepen the pain and agony of the person even more. They know that you don’t understand and you’re left with no other option. Can anyone really ever help anyone that is suffering?

No matter what age I was, I found myself in these moments. As a young girl, I wasn’t aware of everything happening around me but I noticed when someone looked upset, or  looked like they were in pain. Like in the sixth grade with my bestfriend, Lyna.

I’ve only known her for 2 years back then, but I knew that the second I met her, she would be one of those friends that I would grow old with. We made plans to be roommates in college together, to share every detail of each other’s lives together, and to dance until we can’t anymore. This seemed like the year where everything would start changing. In the eyes of Lyna, it was a different change, the type that would change her life forever and she wasn’t ready for it.

“I think they’re separating.” Lyna said one day when she walked up to me during breakfast.

“Separating what?” I said, completely clueless.

“Mom and dad. They’re not happy.” She said looking around, hoping no one else was listening.

Not happy? I would think to myself, I’ve never heard of a separation of parents or loved ones, aside from the movies. My mind was glued to the idea that families stick together and love each other endlessly no matter what. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health..” I truly believed that this was always the case. I told her that her parents love each other very much and nothing will happen. But who was I to tell her that it was going to be okay when I didn't even know myself?

“They aren't the same. They're fighting every single day.” She said to me, as a single tear would run down her face.

“But that doesn't mean anything does it? Parents always fight.” I said with a hopeful tone.

She looked away, disappointed and said with her head down,

“You won't understand anyway. Your family is perfect.”

Perfect? What am I supposed to do with that? My family for one is not perfect. I told her the words that I regretted the second I said it.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Almost everyday, Lyna would come up to me in school with an update about her parents. I would listen but not understand, yet I still tried to. This went on for a few more years until it finally happened, the fear that she grew up with, the nightmares that she wished never came true, did. She was my best friend, she couldn’t do this alone, and she wasn’t alone. Although I thought that all this time, I wasn’t helping, I was wrong. The attempt of trying to help and comfort goes a long way. Having the intentions of extending out a helping hand, the act of doing so makes all the difference. You can never fully cure that damage within but you can apply the bandage and cure it slowly.


Advanced Essay #1: Then To Now


Introduction:



Then To Now is a story about growing up and making sacrifices. Human nature dictates that people tend to stay with what is known, because they are more familiar and comfortable with the subjects. The purpose of this essay is to show the reader that they are not alone when it comes to making difficult decisions in life. However, these difficult decisions are the most impactful ones, and those who choose to venture into places that few have gone end up accomplishing things that a few have done. I’m proud the scenes I chose and how I made connections between two seemingly unrelated stories. Some areas of improvement are including more description in my scenes and also have more reflection throughout the piece.


Advanced Essay:


The acceptance results were in, and it was time to pick a high school. Everyone else seemed to have chosen their picks, and the deadline was the end of the day. I remember it was a chilly fall day, only weeks into my 8th grade year. 7th grade me feared the prospect of making this decision, but I convinced myself that one year was a long way to go. But before I knew it, there was nowhere left to hide.

The day started with Mr. O’s math class. We all shuffled into class with our belongings, and settled in our seats. As I went to turn in my homework, my friend Xu stopped me and asked if I had chosen my high school. I lied and sat down. When the lesson was over, Mr. O gave us independent work time, and that was when he received a phone call from our school counselor. He then turned to look at me, and signaled me to go to him. “What’s holding you up from deciding on your school?” he asked. I thought for a moment. “I’m just stuck between Central and SLA,” I told him. I knew most of my friends were going to Central High School. I didn’t want to be separated from them, but at the same time, I didn’t feel like just following the crowd. “Here’s my two-cents,” Mr. O began, “Think about like this: If you go to Central, you will be around this same group of people you have always been with for four more years, and will remain relatively the same. But if you go to SLA, you will be forced to meet new people and learn, grow, and change.”

I took his words to heart. On the outside, Mr. O may just be a math teacher, but he often shared his life experiences with us and taught us how to be better people. I had the utmost respect for him, and his words were the final push I needed to make up my mind. This engagement with him reminded me of  immigration stories my parents told me when I was younger.

I would be in my room, laying in bed while they sat beside me. My parents were born on poor farms in rural China. In that place and time, everyone had to be self-dependent: people grew their own food, built their own houses, and made their own clothes. The country was poor and they were at the bottom of the social class. My dad told me his strife: how he started taking care of my uncles when he was only 5, had two shirts to wear every year, and even a single bite of meat was rare during meals. When my dad was 25, he decided to immigrate to the US for financial stability to support his family and to provide more opportunities for his children. The Chinese government did not allow immigration to the US, which forced him to risk his life making arrangements with criminal organizations to be smuggled into the US, carrying a debt of $30,000.

It took me many years to make the connection between these two seemingly unrelated episodes of my life. But in many ways, they are two versions of one story—a story of delayed gratification where you make short term sacrifices to reap long term rewards. Just like my dad, I had to make a tough decision in a high pressure situation, and the choice we made would dramatically impact our lives thereafter. I had to choose between staying in my comfort zone where I would continue to be with my friends, or I could venture alone into uncertainty. My dad had to choose between staying with my family back in China, forever having his bloodline chained to poverty and being uneducated, or travel into a land of an unknown language and culture. In the end, I chose SLA. My dad, despite all risks and the idea of traveling so far away from everything he has known and grew up with, made the decision to immigrate. Had I not decided to go to SLA, I would have never realized who my real friends are, never made all the great friends I have today, and never came out of my comfort zone. I would forever remain that introverted boy who would always head straight home after school and play videogames on his own. Had my dad decided not to immigrate to the US, I would not be who I am today. I would never have understood the value of education, the struggles of my family lineage, or been born in a country with far more opportunities and freedom. As the saying goes, “Like father, like son,” we were able to lift ourselves out of our comfort zones to see the long term rewards that a short term sacrifice would bring, and we have never looked back since. Life is not about where you are, but where you take yourself, and if you never venture into the unknown, you will never get more than what you already have.


Boys Soccer Tops Palumbo

by Jorin Gerveni​

On Tuesday, September 12th, the SLA Boys Soccer Team traveled to the South Philadelphia Supersite where they took on the Academy at Palumbo. The game started off with a hard battle in the first few minutes of the game against Palumbo. However, the boys pushed themselves to get a goal, knowing how hard the other team was working. Captain Jorin Gerveni passed to Tito Mazzuchi who dribbled to the end line and scored from an impossible angle, shocking both teams. 

The second goal came from a penalty which was given to freshmen Tristan Dini who got tackled after an incredible run. A defensive mistake caused Palumbo to score to close the gap to 2-1 but SLA did not give up. The defense, led by William Figueiredo and goalkeeper Leo Cassel, continued to fight and stopped Palumbo from equalizing. 

Three more beautiful runs from Jacobo Pastor, Dalnick Matos and Ashton Reigner penetrated Palumbo's defense which put SLA ahead 5-1. The rest of the game continued calmly as the team played the best soccer game of their high school careers. 

The team is now 2-0 on the season, and the boys are excited for a strong season. 

The team wants to wish our captain Malachi Johnson a quick recovery from a concussion as they are preparing to take on Tacony Academy Charter School. Let's go Rockets!

Open House

Attention Prospective SLA Families!
Join us for SLA Center City's Open House on Wednesday, September 27th at 5:30PM.
If you would like to set up an interview at SLA or a shadow appointment, please call the office starting on 9/18 between 9AM and 2PM

Welcome Back! Schedules for 9/5 & 9/6

First Day of School - Tuesday, September 5th 
8:15-10:10   Advisory
10:15-11:00 E Band (e1)
11:05-11:50  Y Band (y2)
11:50-12:35  X Band (x2)
12:40-1:25  A Band (a2)
1:30-2:15    B Band (b2)
2:20-3:05    C Band (c2)

Second Day of School - Wednesday, September 6th
8:15-9:00     Advisory
9:05-9:55     D Band (d2)
10:00-10:50 E Band (e2)
10:55-11:45 A Band (a1)
11:50-12:40 B Band (b1)
1:20-3:30     ILP (Juniors & Sophomores), Capstone (Seniors)
1:20- 2:30    Activity Fair (Freshmen) 
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
8:15–9:20 A E D C B
9:25–10:30 B A E D C
10:35–11:40 X Y A X Y
11:40–12:45 Y X B Y X
12:50–1:55 C B 12:50–1:20
LUNCH
E D
2:00–3:05 D C Franklin Institute /
ILP
A E
3:10–3:50 Advisory Advisory