Darlenny, James, Alan, and Jahan

21 December 2018

The Road Creative Project (Humanity)

Synopsis:

In the game, each player is a survivor who ended up stranded in an island. Since there are a limited number of resources for everyone on the island, there is going to be a lot of acts of camaraderie and betrayal. Luckily this is all fated to happen by God himself. Whoever has the most humanity and/or food is destined to win by God’s will.  

Rules/Instructions:

Humanity is a game about choices. Your choices decide on whether you win or lose the game. There are 2-4 players in Humanity. Each player can choose which mode of transportation represents them.

At the beginning of the game, you start off with five humanity points and five food points. When you land on a square with a symbol on it, you must draw a card that contains that symbol. If the card tells you to do something, you must follow what the card says.

Card Types:

Scenario (represented with a question mark): With this card, you get two options. One option might lower your humanity while getting food. The other option might lower your humanity but lose your food.

Hazard (represented with a brain): This card means something has happened in your travels. You might lose food or something worse.

Blessing (represented with a diamond): You are being blessed. God is watching you and your travels. This card will always have a positive impact on the player.

Sanity (represented with the letter s): Sanity can affect you in weird ways. Always keep track of them! You never know what's going to happen on one of these cards.

Other Features:

Roadblocks: Each player can setup 1 roadblock per game for the cost of 3 humanity point When another player passes an owned roadblock the owner of that roadblock can then take 3 food from that player for the price of 1 humanity point.

When starting the game, roll a dice to see who goes first. Once that is over, the person who rolled the highest number will start first and will start in a clockwise direction. Each player then picks an item that they want to represent them as they travel in the game.

You start the game with 10 humanity points and 10 cans of food. Make sure to keep track of your points as you play the game.

At the end of the game, you tally up all of your points. There are two ways for the game to end: reaching the end of the board and running out of food before reaching the end of the board. When a person loses all of his or her food points, he or she cannot play the game anymore due to starvation and has to put away all of his or her humanity points back into the pile. The game ends when everyone is no longer able to play the game. Once that happens, the humanity points and food points will be added up to get the player’s overall score. The player with the highest score wins the game.

Points:

Humanity: Humanity points are essentially the player’s consciousness. In the game, players will lose or gain their humanity based on their choices from the cards. When a player does not have any human points whatsoever, he or she will essentially lose his or her consciousness, but the player will still be alive if he or she still has food points. At the end of the game, each humanity point you have left is worth 1.5 points to your score.

Food: Food points are points that are essential to the player’s survival. He or she can gain or lose food points depending on the card he or she chooses. Since there are cards that incentivize players to take away players to take away food points from other players, this can cause people to lose food points. When a player loses all of his or her food points, he or she will die and cannot participate in the game. For every can of food you obtain, you add one point to your score.

Rationale:

We decided to base our game off of Snakes and Ladders because of its origins. Although it is unknown who created the game and when the game was created, it is widely believed that Saint Gyandev created the game (known as Moksha Patam) around the thirteenth century to teach children about morality and karma and kama (destiny and desire). Even though we did not add snakes and ladders to our board, we decided to incorporate roadblocks in order to encourage the player to make decisions similar to how the man and the boy have to make decisions essential to survival.

Although The Road is about a man and a boy following a road, there are bumps and obstacles along the way such as facing the weather conditions, encountering cannibals numerous times, and confronting a looter. As a result of that, we decided to make our board game curvy rather than linear. By making our board curvy, we emphasized the nonlinear path the man and the boy take in the book. Regardless of the circumstances, the man and the boy are able to progress. Because of this progression, we decided not to add snakes to our game since it would contradict this idea by having players regress.

For the pieces players can use in the game, we settled on different modes of transportation. As for the environment in the game’s lore, we decided on making it an island since it would emphasize the peculiarity people would experience in a mysterious world like The Road. To make the island have a feeling of danger to it, we decided to add roadblocks that would prohibit players from passing without making a decision. Although our game is about players who are stranded on an island, we did not choose to represent the different modes of transportation as tools players can use to traverse the map. Instead, we chose to have them represent the items the players would carry similar to how the boy would carry a toy truck with him.  

We decided to have two different types of points for our point system: humanity and food. In the book, these two aspects help define the man and the boy. For instance, when it comes to humanity, every character displays their qualities and flaws. The man shows how selfless he can be towards the boy, but he also shows his colder side through the act of murdering people with the boy around. As for the boy, he shows compassion towards other people, but he also pressures the man to save others despite the man’s struggle to keep them both alive. By having humanity points, the player can gain or lose his or her humanity throughout the game.

Along with humanity points, we chose to incorporate food points into the game to reflect the protagonists’ need for consumption. Throughout the book, there are many moments where the narrator mentions food. Without food, the man and the boy would die from starvation. In a world that has a scarcity of food, the notion of starvation can be reflected by the main characters’ lean appearance. Because of the necessity of food in The Road, we decided to make a rule that emphasizes it through food points. If the player no longer has any food points left, he or she dies and cannot play the game anymore.  

As for the cards, we based them off of the cards from Monopoly. In Monopoly, besides property cards, there are two types of cards players would receive when they step on that tile: community chest and chance cards. Since this game does not involve money, we decided to have four types of cards that would match the situations in The Road like hazard, blessing, scenario, and sanity cards. Although hazard and sanity cards seem to be similar from one another, we decided to separate them into different categories because of the slight differences between them. For example, hazard cards involve situations where the player is facing situations that could be fatal while sanity cards involve situations that would degrade the player’s mentality or actions a player would do because of his or her mentality. From situations like the boy witnessing a cooked human infant and the man receiving a shot from an arrow, we believe hazard and sanity cards would help reflect the nature of the book well.

In contrast to the hazard and sanity cards, there are blessing cards. Even though the world the man and the boy live in can be gray, we decided to add blessing cards because of the good moments in the book such as when the man and the boy encounter a bunker with plenty of supplies. In addition to that, we decided to call these types of cards “blessing cards” because of the man’s faith in God. When a player receives a blessing card, would only gain humanity points and/or food points rather than losing them. From that, the player is able to have more of a chance of winning the game. With blessing cards, we believe these cards can help give some relief to the players when they stumble upon these cards.

Even with sanity, blessing, and hazard cards, there are events in the story that are not related to any of them. Because of that, we made scenario cards that would reflect other moments in the book that are not entirely hazardous, traumatic, and blissful. For instance, we included the time when the protagonists encounter Ely by adding a scenario card where it states that the player that he or she gave food to an old man. With the scenario cards, we think it can help show the ambiguity in The Road. However, even with ambiguity, we still want to include other motifs that might contradict it such as faith.

Since faith is reflected heavily in the book, we chose to contribute it to our game’s lore. In our board game, we want to mention God and how he determines who would be the winner and the choices the players make because of the man’s belief in fate. For example, the man believes that he has been chosen by God to protect the boy at all cost. With this mindset, the man is inclined to protect the boy even if he kills others in doing so. Although it can be argued that the man is destined to kill others to protect the boy, this skews the belief that the man is entirely a good person since the act of murder is usually seen as an awful act to commit. In our game, we want to emphasize ambiguity. By having the idea of a winner being determined by God, it creates a feeling of faith similar to the man’s faith in God; however, it comes at a cost of loss.

Because there are some cards that require the player to choose someone to take away humanity and food points from, there are times where players are bound to have conflicts with one another. Even though it might make the game a bit challenging to play with other people, we want to show how people in The Road stumble upon conflicts at times because of contrasting perspectives. For instance, there is a moment where the man and the boy argue over the outcome of the looter; the man believes killing the looter is right while the boy condemns the man’s act. Similarly, when a player chooses another player to take away points from, the person losing points will probably have a different perspective of the situation than the one taking his or her points away. In a world with scarcity like The Road, this creates competition between the players.     

Alan Li

Ms. Pahomov

English 3

19 April 2018

Gathering Players in a Never-Ending Quest

Before Everquest was created, there were games like Dungeons and Dragons and Adventure that captivated people who were interested in roleplaying as fantasy characters. Unlike most massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs today, those games relied heavily on text messages detailing what was happening in the game in order for players to play the game, which is probably bizarre to many people today when looking back to games produced in the 1980s. It was the 1990s where users were able to start playing MMORPGs that are three-dimensional. Unlike other games of the genre at the time, Everquest offered near to impossible quests users would have to complete in order to traverse the world of Norrath—the setting where Everquest takes place in. Although the difficulty of Everquest ended up detracting many people from playing the game, Daybreak Game Company—the company that owns the rights to Everquest—has helped influence the MMORPG genre and can arguably be the most influential MMORPG so far. The impact Everquest had compared to other role-playing games can because of the difficulty level encouraging members of the community to form stronger bonds with one another.

Everquest was able to build stronger bonds between players trying to explore a difficult environment to play on by allowing them to communicate with each other through quests. For many role-playing games today such as TERA and World of Warcraft, users are able to have an easier time completing quests compared to Everquest due to quest logs appearing on the user’s screen that tells him or her what to do and where to go next, which would lead to players being able to traverse through the game without having to interact with any other person in the game. In Everquest, there were no quest logs that would be able to help players with their journey so users would have to look up tutorials written by other players in order fulfill quests in the game. Steven Messner, who is an editor working for PC Gamer, states in an article, “At the time, grinding seemed exciting. It forced you to play with strangers in order to kill tough monsters, and was the only real method to level up your character. By existing in such a harsh world, Everquest inspired strong relationships forged not by the joy of surviving, but of growing together.” From the quote, by noting how players would grow together in the game, it shows how users would be able to make lifelong friends in a stressful environment, which gives users support that cannot be found in other games of the genre. Due to players having to rely on each other for a long time in order to progress through the game, it led to players building friendships and camaraderie in a way that would be impossible to form in any other MMORPG due to its challenging nature.

Along with challenges that built stronger bonds between members of the community, it allowed these players to find the motivation to play the game. Because of the overwhelming difficulties players would have to endure, users would have to be motivated in order to continue the game. In other online games like World of Warcraft, since users are given quests that are easier to complete compared to quests in Everquest, users are able to complete the quests in the game earlier, which would lead to them no longer having any motivation to playing the game due to not having any more objectives. Senior Editor Mike Fahey of Kotaku—a company that talks about video games—notes in a Kotaku article, “The original EverQuest changed the way I interacted with people. By giving me a well-defined role to play, the game made me feel like an important part of any adventuring party, which did wonders for my confidence and self-esteem.” Based on the quote, when he states how he has a well-defined role, it could be interpreted that he is not just talking about his character in the game; he is also talking about his purpose. With comrades having to rely on each other and having that sense of determination to succeed in the game, Everquest gave many users purpose to playing a game that would deter many people who have little to no experience playing the game.

In spite of there being more MMORPG games users can now play other than Everquest, when it came to building a community of dedicated users, Everquest helped facilitate that through difficulties in the game. Besides being one of the first games in the MMORPG genre to be three-dimensional, Everquest helped introduce many users to many mechanics today such as quests, dungeons, and bosses, which can be found in MMORPGs that came after it like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. However, despite those games being more popular than Everquest, Everquest is still played by many despite its age. To end on a final note, when talking about the success the staff team had with Everquest, Brad McQuaid, who is one of the creators of Everquest, once stated in a GameSpot interview, “While they're very proud of their first creation, they feel a need deep down to keep going, upward and onward.” From this, it shows the struggle, determination, and effort the staff team had that could be reminiscent to their player base when it came to developing the game since it was one of the first game of its kind.

Works Cited

Messner, Steven. “A Brief History of MMO Games.” Pcgamer, PC Gamer THE GLOBAL

AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES, 28 July 2017,

www.pcgamer.com/a-brief-history-of-mmo-games/.

Fahey, Mike. “Happy 15th Anniversary, EverQuest.” Kotaku Australia, Kotaku Australia, 17

Mar. 2014, www.kotaku.com.au/2014/03/happy-15th-anniversary-everquest/.

Walker, Trey. “Brad McQuaid Interview.” GameSpot, Gamespot, 11 Jan. 2002,

www.gamespot.com/articles/brad-mcquaid-interview/1100-2838404/.

Desiring the Perfect Marriage

The Taming of the Shrew and Gone Girl

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses Petruchio to show how a husband could "train" his undesirable wife to be something he would seem fit through his actions with Katherine. By “training” her, Petruchio is able to put Katherine into submission by suppressing her free will and her former unpleasant self. David Fincher's Gone Girl takes a similar approach to marital manipulation through Amy. In the story, she would constantly manipulate Nick's emotions to the extremes as a consequence of him cheating on her with Andie by framing him of a crime he initially has no idea of.

In both The Taming of the Shrew and Gone Girl, marriage would revolve around control and infatuation rather than the actual love between two people. In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio would rather change Katherine rather than love her for who she is and in Gone Girl, Nick would get emotionally manipulated by Amy while having to come to terms that she is not the person he initially thought she was. Although deception is still prevalent in marriages, the thought of romantic love is maintained through the perception one has for another, which is infatuation. However, unlike The Taming of the Shrew, besides the swap in gender when it comes to who is in control of the relationship, even though Amy is the one in the marriage who is orchestrating Nick's life against his will, she desires a Nick who is not necessarily his real self. From that, this shows that when it comes to marriage today compared to back then, women can be deceptive as men in relationships and in love while being able to choose the men they want to have.

"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labor both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks and true obedience—

Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband."

- Katherine (Act V Scene 2 lines 155-165).

This is noted by Katherine at the end of the play when her husband bets that she would be the most obedient wife compared to Bianca and the widow. After experiencing the torment Petruchio would put her through such as not letting her sleep at night or not allow her to obtain a dress she ends up liking, Katherine has no other choice but to submit to her husband. This is evident to the reader when she states, “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee.” By referring to him with terms such as “lord”, “keeper”, and “head”, she submits to Petruchio’s dominance over her will in their marriage by the end of the story. With the choice to have no one else to love her or have a man who would destroy her former self, there is no doubt that Katherine will choose the latter when it comes to being with the only man she could ever have, not because her actual self would be loved by that man.    

Like Katherine, in this situation, Nick has no choice but to submit to Amy’s pressure. This scene is where Nick announces on national television that he and Amy will be having a child. When he states, “We’re honest with each other,” it tells the audience that their marriage mainly consists of lies since they have been deceiving each other and have been dishonest to each other the entire movie, but Nick has no choice but to lie. Throughout the movie of Gone Girl, Amy deceives Nick into getting caught for committing a crime he initially has no intentions of perpetrating. As for Nick, with the accusations of how horrible of a person he is for cheating on his wife and how he might be the culprit for the alleged death of Amy, Nick cannot do anything else or express himself. Due to that pressure, he has to pretend to the masses that he and Amy are a happy couple. Amy, unlike Katherine, does not have to worry about her husband leaving him since she is the one in control of the marriage.  

"Look, if you love me, stay."- Katherine

(Act III Scene 2 line 176)

"Grumio, my horse."- Petruchio

(Act III Scene 2 line 177)

The quotes that are stated by Katherine and Petruchio occur during their wedding. In this scene, Katherine wants to stay at the wedding while Petruchio wants to leave. When Petruchio refuses to stay despite Katherine claiming that he is in love with her if he chooses to stay, it shows that Petruchio does not love Katherine for who she actually is. He does not care about what Katherine wants and would commit to actions that would harm her for her “own” sake. As a result of taking Katherine along with him even though she wants to stay, Petruchio proves how he would manipulate her into committing to matters she would not initially oblige to.

In this scene, Amy tells the audience her thoughts of the murder and her plans to ruin Nick. This is reminiscent to Petruchio manipulating Katherine to coercing to things she does not want since in Gone Girl, Nick does not want to be framed for murder and Amy knows this to be the case but she still orchestrates it to get Nick arrested. However, unlike The Taming of the Shrew, Amy deceives Nick to get revenge on him for cheating on her, not necessarily to make him a better person like what ends up happening in Katherine’s case. When Amy states, “He actually expected me to love him unconditionally,” the audience could see how Amy has Nick fooled to believing that and how she would not actually love him unconditionally despite being married to him. This can explain why she is willing to have revenge on him and why she is willing to hurt him: she does not love his actual self.

“You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate,

And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst,

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,

Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate—

For dainties are all Kates—and therefore, Kate,

Take this of me, Kate of my consolation:

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded—

Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs—

Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.”

- Petruchio (Act II Scene 1 lines 179-189)

During Katherine’s first encounter with Petruchio, Petruchio claims that people refer to her as Kate, not Katherine despite her denial. In addition to denying her words as true when she states that people call her by the name of Katherine instead of Kate, Petruchio compliments to her in outlandish ways like calling her “bonny Kate”, “the prettiest Kate in Christendom”, and the “dainties are all Kates”. Despite it being the first time where he actually talks to her, it is clear that Petruchio idealizes Katherine rather than trying to understand her true self because if he is actually in love with Katherine, he would have trusted her when she states that people call her Katherine rather than pushing it aside as a lie. To add up to his idealization of her, without any thoughts or incentives to understand her, it shows how Katherine as a person is no valuable to Petruchio compared to his desire to marry her. Although it could be argued that Katherine is actually value to him since he is willing to marry a person who has a bad and undesirable reputation in the story, if he is truly in love with Katherine, he should try to get to know the person he is marrying instead of fantasizing about her while not trusting what she says.   

Similar to Petruchio, Amy ends up falling in love with Nick’s persona on television, not Nick himself. After coming back from hiding, Amy only realizes that Nick is not the person from his persona on television and that he wants her back so he would not be seen as a murderer in the masses, not that he actually has any affection towards her. This leads to her being somewhat different from Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew because although she has been manipulating Nick to the point where Nick has to be desirable to her to get her back to him similar to how Petruchio tries to manipulate Katherine to winning her affection, she has known what Nick can actually be like as a person due to her long marriage with him. In addition to knowing that Nick is not as desirable as she has wanted to believe prior to her life with him, she knows that Nick has been hiding his affair with Andie from her and has tried to lie about it on TV. Despite knowing Nick as an actual person, his past, and how dishonest he can be, she ends up getting fooled anyway when she comes back to Nick solely because of her idealization of him on TV.

In a lot of ways, characteristics in marriages back then are still around today like manipulation, conceit, and idealization. With many changes to societal norms such as women being given more opportunities now than ever before, this can be surprising to those who have expected society to be a lot different than before. Although there is no doubt that times have changed long after Shakespeare’s times, now that women have more marital rights, women like Amy can potentially be Petruchio when it comes to maintaining traditional characteristics of what marriage has always been. This changes how people see courtship today since with Amy actually being the one taking control of her marriage with Nick instead of the victim of that abuse, people can no longer assume that Amy is the damsel in distress while Nick is the villain without ignoring the implications that can have to victims of domestic abuse like Nick. Overall, to leave on a final note, when Nick tells Amy, “Yes, I loved you and then all we did was resent each other, try to control each other. We caused each other pain,” Amy replies, “That's marriage.”

Works Cited

“The Taming of the Shrew.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes,

nfs.sparknotes.com/shrew/page_246.html.

Milchan, Arnon, et al. Gone Girl. Twentieth Century Fox, 2014.

“The Taming of the Shrew.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes,

nfs.sparknotes.com/shrew/page_138.html.

“The Taming of the Shrew.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes,

nfs.sparknotes.com/shrew/page_90.html.

Alan Li

Ms. Pahomov

English 3

20 December 2017

Enjoyment That Would End up Fading

“Hello,” my mother said from a distance as I came home from school. Even after a stressful experience being in the fifth grade for an entire school year, there was some sense of enjoyment within me when I stepped into the kitchen only to realize that my mother was talking with her friend on the phone about something I was not aware of at the time. As she hung up the phone, I asked my mother what she was talking about on the call. She went down and grinned jubilantly at me while I was still baffled by what she was planning. Without any hesitations, she told me that she was planning a trip where she could bring me and my brothers to a bus trip to Boston along with her friend’s family.

Even if it would be my first time going to Boston, I did not want to go to a bus trip due to how much money it would have been for my family to pay for everyone traveling north to Boston. When my mother got up and walked away from the kitchen, my body was motionless with the worrisome thought of having to spend a lot of money just on a bus trip. At the time, I would have screamed or whined about not going on the trip, but I was not able to. That would have just deterred my mother of happiness and enjoyment. As I think of the moment of me standing still in a temporary trance, I was able to recall the bafflement my eleven-year-old mind had and how difficult it was for me to make a decision on whether to complain to my mother about the trip or not. It was as though the consequences of the choices I would have to decide were like barriers to what I truly wanted at the time.

   As my family and I headed towards the gray bus that would take us to Boston, we encountered a lady spotting us from the bus stop with her husband and daughter. While delighted to see my mother, the lady embraced my mother as they both smiled. She turned out to be the person my mother was planning a trip to Boston with. When the girl looked behind to see what was happening between our mothers, my eyes dilated in horror as I realized that she was Susie, who was one of my closest friends from elementary school. She was not a horrible person but having her witness me with the rest of my family made me want to reconsider complaining to my mother about taking me to Boston.

At first, before the entire trip was arranged, I did not think of Susie much besides a person who was one of the people I socialized with within the school building. Since it was my first time having a friend from school witnessing me with my family and what I am like outside of school, my mind felt as though it wanted me to forget everything that ever occurred and go back home. While everyone was getting on the bus, for a moment, I stood still as though it was that time when my mother announced to me that we were having this trip. “Alannnnnnnnn!” Susie called out from the window as I regained my awareness of what life would be like in a place I had never been to.

Like the first night, while it was my last night staying in Boston, I would glance the window showing me the night sky. However, unlike my first night in Boston, the reason why it was hard for me to sleep was not due to how foreign it was. The reason why it became hard for me to sleep was that of how a foreign place like Boston ended up being a place that became familiar to me for the first time. Throughout the trip, since Susie has been to Boston before, her and her family were able to help guide my family time and time again through a big city like Boston. Even with the enjoyment I had getting to this place not only with my family but with a close friend of mine and her family as well, there was still some uncertainty within me on what life can be like leaving Boston and having to get used to life in Philadelphia. Hours went by as I lose consciousness bit by bit and the fears I kept throughout the trip slowly disappearing into the night.  

As the sun was preparing to leave the trip, my family and Susie’s family gathered together near an airport. Her mother wanted to say farewell to my mother. In return, tears poured down my mother’s eyes. I was not aware that I would not be able to see Susie after the trip was over. My mother knew all along that Susie and her family were going to move back to China after the trip was over; however, despite her awareness, tears came out of her eyes as she embraces Susie and her family. I stood still scared of not knowing what to do next. I did not want to say anything so it would not have been as sad as it was. Knowing too well that it was my last time seeing Susie, I decided to give my farewells to her and her family and they head towards the airport.

When I went back home and tried to sleep, I looked up at the ceiling while I was awake without the ability to sleep. Even though I was in Boston for like two months, it felt as though I was used to having a new life different from the life I always have had. However, since I knew that I would never see Susie again, it felt as though the life I had before the trip would not be same anymore. It was almost the first day of school by a few days and the feelings of joy I had during most of the summer quickly faded as the days gone by. I knew I would only end up at the same school—the place that gave me a lot of stress such as the high amount of homework and tests—again but without Susie—a close friend of mine that had been in the same school as me until now.

Looking back at the trip and the life I had after the trip, I realized how enjoyable life can be and that the reason why people can be disappointed is due to how those moments of enjoyment can end. By accepting my mother’s decision to go to Boston over the summer, I ended up learning what it was like being with someone from my school who I did not know would have a lot of significance in my life outside of it. I only realized how much that means to me when I got to see Susie and her family for last time as they were leaving for the airport, which reminded me of how much turmoil could come from losing someone who had a significant part of one’s life. Even though my trip to Boston was not the only moment of my life where I had enjoyment, I think it is significant to my life because I was stressed out before the trip only to end up stressing out again after the trip was over. Despite the enjoyable moments in my life only being temporary, it makes me feel better when I think of those moments of my life and how experiencing new things can even be enjoyable for me. To that, I want to thank my mother for planning that bus trip I would otherwise miss out on if I complained.

Script

After my fifth-grade year ended, my mother was planning a trip to Boston with a friend of hers. After she placed back the phone, I wanted to whine because of how expensive it was for my parents to pay off. However, I could not. I knew I would have only disappointed my mother if I did. Instead of whining, I just stood there, wondering if the trip would be worth it.

By the time we went to the bus stop, I ended up meeting Susie, whose mother happened to be friends with my mother. Since Susie was a close friend of mine from school, I did not want her to think weirdly of me. As I got on the bus, Susie noted that she and her family had been to Boston before. Although I felt awkward at that moment, I decided to ask her questions when it came to Boston. We ended up getting carried away as we talked about random things throughout the first day.

When it was my last time in Boston, I was not able to sleep. I enjoyed being in Boston, which was a place I got to learn more about because of the help from Susie and her family. I did not know she would end up becoming one of my best friends outside of school and how much enjoyment I would have with someone from my school. As we left Boston and headed to the airport, Susie’s family gave their farewells since they were moving back to China. My mother was filled with tears and before they left, I gave them my farewells in return. Without Susie being in my middle school class, my life felt stressful again as sixth grade started. Even though moments of enjoyment can be temporary, the reason why opening up to new moments can still be cherishable is due to the values they can have towards a person when moments like these are gone.

Alan Li

Una oda a Francisco Indalecio Madero.

Pensativo, inteligente, honesto.

Cuando yo te veo pienso en libertad y pensamientos.

Me haces tener esperanza.

Mi nombre es Alan

Soy de América pero mi familia es de China

Sólo quiero caminar con dignidad

La lluvia está siempre conmigo

Recuerdos desde mi infancia con mi familia

Que a veces parte mi alma

No tengo nada

Huelo la tierra con mucho árboles y plantas

Saboreo las naranjas en las manos de mi abuelito

Veo que da a mi familia para comer

Oigo el viento del cielo

Toco agua fría de mis manos.

Trabajo por mi vida

Camino por mi destino

Leo a un pedazo de tierra

Como mi alma con navajas

Duermo con mucho agua en mis ojos

Miramos en el jardín en la casa

Mucha agua lloviendo en la tierra

Caminamos en la encrucijada

Está lloviendo triste

La tierra rompiendo

Mi mamá y mi papá están tristes en la casa

Vemos por la ventana

Salimos de la tierra con almas rotos

Lunes.

Buenos diás...

Me llamo Alan.

Hace viento y calor pero sin embargo está lloviendo.

Bastante aburrido.

¡Bastante aburrido!

Buenas tardes...

Hace frío

No me gusta nada correr pero sin embargo está lloviendo.

¡Está lloviendo!

¿Por qué?

Odio correr tampoco comer.

No me gusta nada dormir.

Es la una de la mañana.

No...

Es por eso que odio practicar deportes.

Soy siempre timidio...

¡Buenas noches...!