Whoosh! AHHHH! As the monstrous roller coaster of Kingda Ka takes its turn on the scarred but wanting riders. I am only 11 years old and this is the first roller coaster I’m going to ride! I think I’d rather eat worms than go on this…thing.  I need to find a way out of here but its hard to do when your surrounded by hundreds or thousands of people and my dad and 6 foot brother are right next to me. They both are starring at the roller coaster as if its something they would want to do again and again. I’m looking at it like it’s an insane serial killer. As we moved closer I could see how the riders were literally launched into orbit because I couldn’t see the top of the roller coaster. And they would come down what seemed an eternity later. Supposedly the ride lasts only 30 seconds, think they tell you that so they are able to do what they want to you in the sky. When the people get off the ride they are groggy and look crippled. I tried to tell my dad but to no avail, we stayed in the line. Another thing going on with this ride is when it starts they don’t make a noise, I can hear them talking and poof they cant speak.

I found out that I wasn’t alone. There was another kid my age but much shorter and he was trying to do the same thing with his dad and sister. But his dad actually let him go over to his mom while he and his daughter stayed in line.  Now I figured my dad wasn’t going to miss this or let me do what the other kid did and we were going to all die or become cripples. There had to be at least a thousand people waiting in line all knowing what was coming and yet they had an eager look on their faces. As I looked around I saw that everyone had there eye on the gates that locked you out of the roller coaster except for when the men and women in the blue blazers opened them. We were only a couple groups behind from going onto this death coaster. I had heard in commercials that it was one of the scariest rides in the world, and my mom said that you wouldn’t be able to pay her to go on the ride. She said she would probably look like a ghost at the end and her blood would be at the top of it, wherever the top is.

            As we stepped into the pitch-black seats and the big red bars slammed down and pinned me down into a seat I almost screamed out for help. Then they told my dad to take his glasses off. My dad asked “why do I need to take them off? Not to be rude, just curious.”

            “Because,” The man in the blue blazer said “a couple of weeks ago a woman that cared too much about her looks didn’t want to take her wig off. So when the ride went her wig flew off and got wedged in the ride and t had to be shut down a for a couple of hours. Also the amount of G forces could make them fly off or break”

 What does that mean? I thought to myself, is that some sort of radiation or weapon? It sounds like 50 cent but in superhero form. My stepmom and brother were talking. My stepmom got to sit out on the side but she said “’Have a good ti-“ and that’s all we heard. While my brother, my dad, and I were slingshotted forward and my head was slammed back into the so-called cushioned headrest. All I could see was blurs of the Amazon in the background. But once we hit the top of the 456-foot high green monster everything was in slow motion and I could see absolutely everything in about a mile radius. There were the monkeys jumping on top of a car, some gazelles running out on the sandy plain like a national geographic magazine picture and then swoosh! We were heading straight down toward the ground at an extreme velocity; I could see my end coming once again. I was going to be headlined on the news as boy turns into pancake. In some odd way we turned horizontal and went up a slow hill and landed safely into the landing dock. When we got off I yelled with surprising joy in my voice “I want to go again” as my hair stood on end from the amount of air rushing at me.

­Nick Manton

Iron Stream

Y-Band

English

            Language means many different things. It can be from what words you speak such as English, Spanish, German, etc. Language can also be the way you speak to one another. It’s not an easy thing to describe, because it is not a dialect but it is very similar. It is the wordage choice you use with different sets of people. You can have change between conversation personalities subconsciously or consciously. It can be different between friends, family, fellow employees, etc. Conversation with your friends might use a choice of words like these, “Hey man, what’s up?” While with your employees, the conversation would be much more formal.

            When I am at my dad’s house the conversations last much longer and are usually education, sports, or family related. It is a flow of words and has its serious moments, but then the conversations can be extremely funny with a word here and there while the rest of it is a foursome of cackles and heavy breaths from laughing too much. The conversations not only are educated or hilarious or serious but there is a tone that we use with each other. It seems like a very common way of talking to us but to many other people such as friends who come over to our house and listen to us talk usually are confused at what is being talked about. It can’t be put into words and can only be witnessed. Sometimes we just love to confuse a guest and we do it on purpose.

            “So when are we having dinner?” says my friend Paul.

            “What dinner?” my dad replies with believable wondering voice.

            “You know” Paul replies confused “when you ate in the evening.

            “Huh?” I say going along with my dad.

            “What the f*** Nick!?” Paul’s voice rising in frustration. “Are yous high or something?”

            “I think you’re the one that’s on something” my dad replies matter-of-factly.

            While at my mom’s house the conversations are short and usually pointless. The conversations tend to be a little awkward, not really a flow of words. If you could imagine small talk that’s big, that would describe the way talking goes on in my mom’s house. It does have moments of decent conversation but for the most part it is something like this:

            “Hey Nick.” My mom says uninterestedly “Are you finished your homework?” I could reply that I blew up the school and she wouldn’t notice. But instead I usually reply “No. Not yet.” Then there is a log pause and she either leaves or asks more pointless questions.  Sometimes there can be spurts of actual deep long conversations that really do mean something to someone in this world. The time where there are conversations like those are always over text messages or voicemails.

            Around friends conversations usually happen extremely fast. We go through subjects in matters of minutes and seconds. Using words that probably do not even exist. Sentences that are so improper that every English teacher in this world would want to line up to smack each of us. A conversation listed by subject would look something like this: Sports, Comedy, sports, comedy, video games, school work, and then we all get mad because someone had to mention school.

            We all for the most part will act differently and speak differently depending on the people who are around us. Whether it is with your parents, friend, co-workers, or even your pet. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing it is something that we automatically do. It is an interesting aspect of the brain and I wonder what part of our minds controls this reaction. I haven’t meet a person yet who hasn’t spoken differently around me than when they do with their parents.

The Connection Between Two

Grinding her teeth as she looked up at the clock seeing that she was now over 20 minutes late from when she had made plans. She started throwing the towels out of the bathroom door, into the hallway to form a pile to take down stairs to the laundry room. Next thing you know all you hear throughout the house is “Crash!”    

My mom, my sister and me all dropped our current work and ran to see the catastrophe that had just happened. One of the high-speed towels thrown by my sister hit the wall and had knocked down my mom’s personal thimble collection that consisted of every trip she ahs been on, everything from the shore to the islands. Luckily not all had fell and out of the ones that did fall only three broke. The thimbles sat on a shiny thin shelf and had three shelves built in. It was stained dark brown. It was open to touch and look at but I guess that’s not the best way to keep them on display, but it was still extremely upsetting. 

From the look on my mothers face, I just completely understood, the emotion of losing something, something really special. My mother’s collection of thimbles is like bits of memory of her past life, where she has been and what she has seen. The breaking of one if these thimbles are like losing that memory forever. It was heartbreaking; I could see it in her eyes. I feel that this feeling is mutual; everyone has been there and knows the feels. Everyone has that one thing that gives their life meaning, the one thing that shows their life in a nutshell. From everything bad you encounter in life comes something so great, that one thing that tops the bad and keeps your train chugging on down the tracks; it’s when something so great happens. Not something huge in life, but that tiny little surprise that really makes your day. We have all been there, and so have I. 

We all waited recklessly while my mother was gone, we all waited for the bells on the door to jingle to let us know that she was home and that the dinner too. My mother walked in the door, no not with a big brown paper bag with grease stains, she walked in with a huge bat and pumpkin orange bucket with a high thin handle which my mom was holding it from. The bucket had lines of dark purple as well.

After dinner that night, I was honored to get the empty bucket of where our dinner had been the hour pervious. It had been washed out and scrubbed hard to get rid of all the sauce and the smell. It now smelled like show kind f apple, that’s the kind of soap we had that week.  I was blown away at the fact that this bucket had just become mine! I knew I had to use it for something good and what was better then to make my stickers into a great big collection, because it was something that was important to me and was something I used often. I wanted to show it off and make people wonder what is the content of this bucket. “Thanks, mom. I love Halloween!” I remember saying to my mom, while I waked away with the bigger grin that I can ever remember on my face. 

The smallest things can make one so happy. When it relates to something so great, like ones collection. Though this collection of mine is just pieces of paper decorated with random picture with a layer of sticky glue on the back, making easy to put these picture everywhere. Adding on to collections no matter what kind, it feels great, it makes you feel that you have expanded on life and that your life is meaningful. It’s a measure of where you been and your amount of effort. 

This material things that we find so important, important enough to cry over and important enough to spent more on, why are they so important. These material things all have meaning; like my mom says only you know where you have been and what you have gone through, only you know how to live your future, it all depends on your past. It is important to reflect in your life, look back on what you have done and know what you want your future to look at. Collects are pictures and objects that show this in a nutshell. 

Now that I am older, my collects are still with me and I am able to look back and see the Teletubbies stickers that I had when I was 6 and remember how important they were to me, and that my favorite one was the yellow Teletubbie whose name was Lala. They aren’t something you can find in stores anymore. I still have the stickers from my clown birthday party that I had at my house in pre-K. I even still have my Pokémon book full of all my teaching stickers that I used for when I played school. Everything shows different chapters in my life, and allows me to hold onto that memory. Collections help adults and teens hold on to the child in them and always remember the stages in their life and reflect them. It’s like the retro clothes your mom still has from when she was in high school in the 70s. It allows you to grasp the meaning in what life truly has in store for you. 

Madeline walls

Iron

Crash! My head jerks towards the unexpected sound. It was my best friend fighting with her ex over the couch looks of shock plastered to their faces. I follow their stares to the floor they had knock over the table which held my moms favorite candle. Panic fell over me as the shock faded from the two sitting in front of me. They jumped up and started a heat argument this made my face twitch and my heart kick into over time.

“Look what you did you idiot” screamed the boy. “Me? You’re the who slammed me into the side.” She hissed back. This argument continued for a while but all I could think about was that I had let my friend come over because she had promised me she wouldn’t fight with him, who was always at my house being my brother’s best friend. I couldn’t believe they had the nerve to use enough violence to knock the table over. I just started screaming at them my face hot. “ Are you kidding me how dare you two come into my house and disrespect my home? I trusted you two to be more mature you guys promised I cant…” But just then my moms walk out and I started shacking in fear. Her face was sad she looked at me and hung her head; I thought she was mad at them but truly she was disappointed in me. “Maddie you should over react like this you can’t let a candle ruin your whole day. You can always buy a new candle but you can never buy a new friend.”

When forced to examine natural human reaction you can see that some reactions are uncalled for and just make the situation worse. Instead of taking a moment to judge the situation people react without thinking which creates an unfair judgment on what to do this creates a lot of unfair conflict which will could later result in the end of a relationship or eve n worse the end of a life. I believe it’s important to learn from my mistakes and see what heated arguments can cause for me they have never done more then upset me for no reason but for other they can do a lot worse.

When I was younger my parents used to fight a lot but it was always over the little things and never about anything important. At one point it looked like it was going to end the marriage lucky for me it didn’t because they realized they were spending too much time on the little things and were ignoring the big things. I sadly developed these quick outbursts of emotions, which can easily kill a relationship and this scares me. For many marriages people never learn this lesson, which is why I believe that most marriages that end didn’t work out. In less you take time to see the whole picture and parts where you might be at flat you will never fix the problem and it will just become worse.

For example of when I have over reacted here was a time in my life. The room was black but wasn’t quiet the sounds of the music playing from the open laptop blared. I walked in using my small blue cell phone to light my way. Little did I know it didn’t light up well enough to help me avoid tripping because before I knew it smack! I hit the floor. The person on the couch jumped up as my head span mixing all the different shadows together I felt sick from fear. Angry grunting sounds of anger started from the couch the noises blended together. “Ouch.” Was the only moan that left my lips before the yelling started. “What are u doing it’s 3 in the morning?” the pounding of the voices footsteps heading towards the light switch echoed in my head. When the switch was flicked the light that flooded from the ceiling made the spinning worse colors joined the dancing shadows until the show became only color. I grew nauseous but that angry face staring back at me forced me to keep quiet. At the time I didn’t know this face well he had only come over a few times and was my older brothers friend so we never said more then hello to each other. The face was young way younger then the massive body that it was attached to he had to be over 6ft which made me more nerves but that face was so young and those eyes they held something the more I looked the less they looked like anger and the more they looked like something else. Looking up at the face I realized that fear was on face not anger it was compassion and sympathy that stared back at me. He walked over to me on his baby face grew a smile his hand reached out to mine less fear and spinning I took it and was lifted towards the air. “Are you okay what hurts you want me to get your mom.” he said. “ No I’m okay I just banged my head don’t get my mom I’ll be fine I’m just going to go back to sleep I think I can go back to sleep again.” I said no fear now. “How about you stay up for an hour that’s what my mom makes me do I don’t think you should sleep yet we can watch TV and get to know each other.”  He said with concern but kindness the kind of voice that can draw you in. So we did and laugh had great time and that was the beginning of a great friendship.

That night instead of waiting and to see or thinking of what would happen I immediately judged the situation and assumed the worse this cause unneeded stress and caused me to feel physically ill. Really I wasn’t hate he had felt towards me it was concern but I had prejudged who he was before even getting to know him. When I was trying to walk into the living room I saw him right away as a dangerous person he was my enemy. Thinking about it now my theory of who he was didn’t make sense why would a guest at your house be mad at you for getting hurt. 

When I was reflecting on this sense it showed that it could have also worked in the opposite way I could walk past a friendly looking lady who needs help with her bags. I could bring them into her house and she could kill me, it shows how easy it is to miss judge because you would never assume that the women would hurt you. It is important to think before your actions. Knowing that your first reaction may not always be right may also go to far. Constantly watching from the sideline and waiting to see can cause you to miss out on a lot in life. It is important to have healthy balance of caution and instinct when judging a moment. If doctors’ miss judge people die police officers miss judge they could die or innocent people could get lock behind bars for something they didn’t do while the guilty go free. You must think carefully about the decisions that you make. You never know what results they could have.

Living is something everyone does, and everyone lives on the same place, Earth, but why is it that we all live so different lives? What could be the independent variable in which we have complete control over, in this experiment of life? Language, the way people talk is key here, everyone starts the same on the same path, but from a early age, to early to really know what you are doing the way of speech puts you in a place. This place defines you and is the reason for where you stand in life, how life plays out and most importantly who is in your life to help mold it into what it becomes in the future. 

“Why you in my pocket, yo?”  My sister said with a raised tone in her voice. 

“What? Amber, what? What is that even suppose to mean?” my mom said getting kind of mad at this point in the conversation.  “Amber, your sister was just asking you a question, do not get all hyper and what is ‘why you in my pocket’ even suppose to mean? That doesn’t even sound nice.” Her voice was starting to sound concerned about the language my old sister was starting to use.  

This conversation with my sister followed a discussion of where her paycheck went. My sister, Amber had been complaining about how she was broke and had no money to go out nor to fill her pocket, even though the day before this she had gotten a thick pay check. To me this didn’t make sense and from hearing her complain multiple times it made me eager to confront her. When this simple question was asked by me her response was ‘Why you in my pocket’ which isn’t correct grammar or anything close to what my home family speaks like. This type of language reflects the friends that she surrounds herself with when she is out. This quote from her, plus her tone did not sound pleasant nor did it make me want to continue the conversation. It concerned us more and made both, my mother and I shake our heads with disappointment. Differences in language make people uncomfortable when it comes to conversations, mainly because they cannot understand the differences and the questioning factor of, is what I am saying going to be accepted by this person. Everyone no matter if they have a really strong and noticeable background everyone has different ways of talking with different people. When it comes to many different ways of speaking, that causes another challenge to arise. When to use certain languages and how to make sure it doesn’t slip in front of the wrong person. Which is what happened in this case. This phrases said by my sister probably would have been okay to say to her friends and she would of “won” the argument that she was in.  

“Today was the worst day ever, it sucked mom.” I said, as I walked in my front door and dropped my school bag to the ground. I tore my shoes off my feet and through them against the upstairs steps. Then took a deep breath and stared in the eyes of my mother with no energy. 

“Chelsea Ann, what kind of language is that?” my mom said ignoring the fact that I was in a not so good mood. 

“Mom, you don’t understand my day literary sucked, it was the worst” I said reassuring her that the language I had used was for a reason and was being used to describe the degree of how bad of a day it was. 

“I don’t care, I don’t want to hear that, it just isn’t a very nice word, you can use other words to describe your day. I don’t like that word, it just sounds fail.”

This is a normal conversation that happens with my mom. The content normally varies but the same things happen, I always get told about my use of words and how they do not sound nice. My mom works in a school and deals with little kids all day from the grades of K-3. So you can imagine her language being very PG rated. She is also quit proper when it comes to talking because she is use to kids picking up everything she says, so she is almost always formal. Another thing that really bothers me mother is the phrase “my bad.” It has just become one of her pet peeves, but I often use it because I have caught on to it from school and friends. 

“Oh, no not yet, my bad. I’ll do it when I’m done writing my English paper.” I said as I said on my computer at the dining room table, listening to music and checking my Facebook. 

“Chelsea, what is this my bad? You know I hate it, it sounds so ghetto.” She said in a tone that allowed me to know that she was appalled by my language.  

This situation above was not a serious issue with my mother so I said “my bad” like I normally would to anyone my age. Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is a lot more formal and I would use it after I did something wrong so naturally ‘my bad’ came out but to my mother’s ears it sounded ‘ghetto’ and trashy to say. 

In one of the short stories we read in class in-titled Tongue Tied, The mother of the main character had cut her daughter’s frenum, which is the thin piece of skin under a tongue connecting it to the jaw. The daughter is the only one with this piece cut and she wonders about it a lot, when she brought it up to her mother, her mother’s response to doing it was, “I cut it so that you would not be tongue-tied. Your tongue would be able to move in any language. You’ll be able to speak languages that are completely different from one another. You’ll be able to pronounce anything. Your frenum looked too tight to do those things, so I cut it.” (Kingston, p.164) In the long run the daughter had a lot of problems with her speech and had a speech impediment, but the reason her mom did it was because in her mind she thought it would help her daughter. She did not want anything to hold her daughter back, which leads me to believe my mom has similar goals to the main character mom. 

My mother did not cut my tongue or do anything so drastic to come close to that mother, but my mother does want the best for me. My mother does want my life to be amazing and she does want all three of her children to shine. So when she gets upset over our language I guess it makes sense. The little habits we pick up while with our friends, over time it turns into bad habits that could break us when it comes to job/college interviews. I know my mother does not want that, she is always pushing us forward to type proper when on Myspace or Facebook and to talk proper and normal. When it has come to job interviews she has me run things and stresses the importance to me, I know she wants the best and means well. Sometimes she comes off strong and from difference sense in my life I can see her anger and degree of her being upset, but I shouldn’t take it to personal because she is only trying to better me and push me to be the best. I can see that now and what really made this clear to me was the movie we learned in class about the different ways of speaking throughout the country. The movie has really made it clear that different dialects are looked down upon and looked at as being stupid. Listening to the people talk and hearing what parents of people in the film told them, about because of their accent they always need to be one step ahead and they are stuck proving that they are just as capable. I know my mother does not want me to fall under this category and I guess now I will not argue with her about my speech, I will just aim to do better because I know it’s my future that’s in the hands of my teenage speech. 

Tenzin Ngawang

Iron Stream

Talking about myself is really not my thing but I’ll have to write something as my autobiography for my english project which is specifically for my language so here it goes.

Language from my perspective is a way of communicating in one specific community and that can be learned by foreigner. I have always been interested in learning different languages. I pick up languages quicker than everyone because it fascinates me the most. My favorite way to learn languages are to watch TV shows or look at how people speak it.

In my earlier years, I lived in a rural place in northern India with small amount of people. I went to tibetan school and took hindi classes. My family spoke tibetan at all times, my god grandpa would speak heavy tibetan with big tibetan words but I was little so I only knew couple of big words. When I visited my parents in south India during winter vacation, I’d blurt out big tibetan words and my mom would be in awe. I didn’t know a lot of different languages existed.

I remember this one time when I said “thamp tu” meaning like the stamp with blue ink. It was a really hot day like always and it had been a week since my arrival in south india. I was around 5 years old and my mom just got home from her shop. My grandma was working on some paperwork and I picked up a stamp that had our address on it.

“Mommy, how do you have our address on this thamp tu (stamp)” I asked curiously.

“awww my baby said “thamp tu”! I’ve to call your dad. He’s going to be so proud of you!” my mom replied in awe. I was pretty surprised to see her so proud of me. I overheard my mom talking to my grandma saying something about being happy that I got into the tibetan school in Dharamsala. Also that she sees the improvement in me already and that it’ll be good for my future etc. I wanted to learn more and more new words in tibetan when I went back to my school in the spring. All my teachers were pretty surprised at how well I was doing in every classes. Then during my 6th grade, I had to take hindi classes. I had the most strict teacher in my whole entire life. She’d hit us with broom if we failed our quizzes. In India, teachers were allowed to hit their students. The whole hitting part made me want to pass all the quizzes and it actually helped me a lot in learning hindi even though I speak it already. I learned hindi just by living in India of how people talk, for example, in a store, you’d want to ask can I get this? or how much it is? etc. Basically wherever you live, you’ll catch up with the language pretty quickly.

One day, I got home and my god grandpa told me that my dad fled to United States and I wondered how would he manage to speak english when he only had a 5th grade level of knowledge. He is a smart man but, he knew only few words in english back then. I later learned that he went to my uncle’s first and my uncle was like the eye to his body. He taught everything he needed to know.

I started learning the full english in 7th grade. Meaning I already learned alphabets and everything in 3rd or 4th grade but we were finally starting to learn meanings to passages and or paragraphs of english essays. During my 7th grade, I flew here, in US. I had to 4 months till I can join school because we arrived in may. In June, american students were suppose to have summer vacation and there was no point in going to school for a month. My siblings and I started watching TV shows to catch up with the language because my siblings were even worse with English because they hadn’t started learning english yet in India. Then during september when school started, I could easily understand what people were saying when they asked questions. I didn’t have a rough first day in middle school like every book I read said. I even made couple friends.

Nathan Giello

Did you ever notice that the way you speak changes with you current environment, I mean it happens all the time.  Like when I home with my mom or something I will enunciate my words more, and censor what say, but when I'm with my friends I’m a totally different person, I curse, use slang, and just have a different tone in my voice. Which leave me wondering which one am truly I? The version at home, or the version with my friends?

I was with friends the other day on south street, we went to Jims Steaks, and did some shopping We were walking down the street to sneaker store, and I saw a pair of sneakers in the window, and I turned to my friends and said “yo look at dees, they mad fresh.”, so later that night when I went online to show my mom the shoes I said “Look at these, I think they are really cool.” But then I laughed, I caught my self, I saw then my change in vernacular. It was amazing to see that I could do that, and not even recognize it. It’s kind of like art, the way you don’t really realize that you’re a good artist until some one says they like your doodle in your notebook.

So then after I realized this, I started to think back to previous conversations that I could remember to see if I was code switching, and it astonished me to find that I’ve been doing this since fourth grade, which is when I started to really begin to develop my vernacular, and I really started to create my self.  The thought of a 10 year old me sitting in the lunchroom, using new words to create my self without even knowing it.

I remember sitting in the lunch room at W.M.Meredith elementary school, which smelled like burnt cheese and Windex, talking to a large headed kid, and being looked at like I was insane, and going home and trying to figure out why he was looking at me like that, was it my cloths, my hair, or I smell funny? It was eating away at me, so the next day I asked him “ Why do you look at me like I’m insane when I talk to you?” he replied with a smirk “ Why you speak lyka white boy?”. That was it I sounded white, not that there is anything wrong with the way white people speak, but non-the less it was weird.  The next day I came into school speaking totally different.

I walked in the next day and started a conversation with the same kid:

“Yo Reef, whats up bro?”

“Sup new boy?”

“nuffin chillin, what bout u?”

“hahahaha!”

“what the hell you laughin at?”

“You young boy, why you talkin like dat?”

“This how I normally talk, I just talked like a white person because….”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if I could do it”

“Oh ight”

After that I got invited to do things with the kids at school, I had new friends, and eventually was one of the guys. That conversation had changed everything, I never again spoke the same way in the two parts of my life, there was a home langue, and a school langue. I still slipped up every once in a while, but never for long, actually most of the time I would be able to play it off. And the best part was that, this was just the beginning as I got older everything got smoother.

When I was in eighth grade I felt I would begin to reinvent myself for high school, I changed everything, the way I dressed, the way I acted, the way thought, and the way my speech got more intercut, I figured a way to use less brain power when switching langue, by slowly merging them into one. Yes they still had their differences, but the base of speech was the same. Conversations were so different, like the time I was on the way to a party with my friend, my mom gave us a ride:

“yo so did we have to wear dress cloths?”

“Naw I don’t think so dude”

“ Well the invitation didn’t say that you had to, so I would think not.”

“Oh ok, its cool.”

The conversations were just different, I wouldn’t have used “yo”, or “cool” with my mom in the car before, I but if I was just with friends I wouldn’t have used words like,  “have”, or “wear”, I wouldn’t have even said anything like that in the past. But that’s not the end of my evolving.

In late ninth to now, everything has just been different, I decided that the integrated langue wasn’t the best, so I went back to using two separate langue’s, but now I was able to switch them without thinking about it, I could be talking on the phone with a friend walking to my house, hang up when I open the door, and have a totally different persona. Like the other day I was talking to my friend Chris walking home, and stepping into the house still on the phone, and just automatically just changed the word:

“Yeah brov, she kept dickeatin so Ah hadda cut her loose”

“Yeah Ah gotchu, she always all up on you”

“Right? But what bout your shawty perediciment?”

“Ah don’t even f***in know brov, sometimes she all good then other time she jus make me wanna scream!”

“Ah I gotchu, but what bout da other gurl? Was goin on wit dat?”

“She really tryin to talk and she bad as shit, but I don’t even know what tuhdo”

“Ight Ah gotchu, (walking into the door) but like, what do you think your going to do?”

“You home?

“Yeah how did you know?”

“ Jus text brov, ard?”

“Yeah alright”

But that’s what I mean everything changes.  Through out the course of life your langue changes.  I am no longer wondering which version am truly I? The home version? Or the friends’ version? And I realize that they are both me, they are both sides of who I am, and who I always will be.

Madeline walls

Iron

12/20/10

Society is in a constant struggle to fit in, but in our current society it is ever possible to truly belong to anything?  Once you feel like you are accepted someone makes you feel like acceptance is so far away. Whether on propose or not people have a way of treating people different or talking down to them if they sound or act differently. The struggle for acceptance deeply hurts many people. You can be told you’re dumb because you have a southern accent or that you are rude if you have a New York accent. The fact is so many cruel things can be said even by the ones you love not always to be vicious but simply because they have been thought to think this way.

Sometimes living in one place your whole life makes you blind to how it feels to sound different. I know I never realized how hard it was to be the one that sounded different. I didn’t realize how easy it was to get so lost in the words of what is supposed to be your own langue. This was all until I had to spend a few weeks in West Virginia.

 I looked like I could have lived there except for the way I tried to tip toe around the mud. My uncle knew me as the classic nervous city kid, which made him laugh and want me on the farm even more. He loved laughing at the way I would stay as far away from the animals I was feeding as possible. My face would true a bright pink whenever they move to close to me. Lets just say I wasn’t very good at farm life but to me it was all worth it if they would bring me into town so I could be around people in the afternoon. I had come use to seeing many people after living in a very busy community my whole life. So the slow loneliness of that farm with only cousins and animals to talk were not cutting it. 

Finally after two days of waiting they decided to take us all into town. I was so excited to go and see the friends that I had known since two years ago the last time I had come here. They had been emailing me every week since we meant and I couldn’t wait to see them. As we pulled up at the restaurant that I would meet them at I grew very excited. I could see Jessica with her long brown hair tied into a bun standing next Carrie whose short brown hair was bobbing back and fourth as she talked right outside the door. I got out of the car the and ran up to greet them we were all so excited we couldn’t talk for the first 5 minutes then Jess started asking me a million questions all at once her voice seemed to drag on for ever and had that weird kick to it that I had been hearing form my cousins for days. I started talking my words were fast they seemed to dance off my tongue after I finished I looked around to hear an answer and all I saw all I heard was laughing.

“Why do you sound like that”? Carrie giggled 

“Like what.” I stuttered sounding nervous.

“Like a you’re in a race it sounds so funny.” She said as she continued laughing. 

I was now really upset now for the rest of the day I had to listen to joke after about the way I sounded. The next day my aunt offered to take me down to see them again I refused to go I didn’t want to talk I spent the next week trying to talk just like my aunt just like my cousins they would never laugh at me ever again.

I realized now that changing to fit in was more work then it was worth I was only able to hold on to a week where I felt belonged before I had to come back to Philly and try to sound like I belonged there. I felt so rejected by both sides like I would never feel like I was normal again. 

This is a big problem for so many especially for many adults who can’t change how they sound as easily as young people. The inability to fit into this perfect mold that people feel they need to belong to feels like rejection. When people feel rejected they find it easier to reject others. I think this is because they find things to be black and white after that. That is why I think its so easy for it to continue on in a long cycle of sadness and rejection.

 People start to try and change like the way the woman in American Tongues hired a speech coach to get rid of her Boston accent. This almost made me sad because she felt so rejected and mocked by her accent that she couldn’t just leave her natural accent alone. I think the current issue of unhappiness with accents can never change because not only are other people judging the person themselves can’t stop judging how they sound. I feel that this is said and think we should all just accept who we are.

My dad had just gotten home and I was eager to kick the soccer ball outside with him.  It was my first year playing soccer on a team, and I refused to be the worst one there.  I was playing on a Fairmount team for kids ages 8-10.  I had only ever just kicked the soccer ball around, and was not very good.  I was in dire need of practice.  My neighbor was on my team, and her mom was the coach.  I could have practiced with her, if I asked.  They knew how to play soccer well, and could easily help me.  But nothing is better than getting to spend some quality time with your dearest dad by kicking the soccer ball around. 

We would stand three yards apart in the middle of the small street, and kick the ball back and forth to each other.   He would help me when I needed it, and teach me new tricks when we were getting bored. We would kick the soccer ball for half an hour and talk.  We would talk about what it was going to be like to play on a team, what position I may want to play, and what it was like when he was on a team as a boy.  It would be the perfect opportunity for us to bond.

My dad was always at his office working.  My mom was the one who picked me up from school, took me to violin lessons, and tried to keep me occupied when I was bored.  She was really good at tennis, but dreadful at soccer.  My sister was usually at home doing homework and talking with friends.  She was always “too busy” to play soccer with me, which was not much of a loss, since she was worse than my mom.   My dad was the only person in my family who knew how to play soccer.  But he was also only at home in the early morning, and three hours before my bedtime.

When my dad would plop his bag down by the brown wooden chair by our stairs, he would say hello to my mom, and go down stairs for a beer.  After a long day of work, a bottle of beer was his usual reward. Then he would come back up stairs and tell me the name of the beer, some of which had funny names. He would then head downstairs and plop onto the cream sofa in our living room.

            One day, when he came home after a long day of work, I had barely given him enough time to find the television remote to watch the news before I interrupted his relaxation.  “Dad can we kick the soccer ball around outside?” I asked eagerly, he looked up down at me, for I was still really short, and said “No.”  He explained to me that he had just gotten back from work, and needed some time to relax, and that we would practice after dinner. 

This was our daily routine.  I would ask, he would say “no,” and we would play after dinner. I would protest when he refused to play soccer with me. I would tell him that it would get too dark after dinner, and that all he was doing was kicking the soccer ball, so it wouldn’t take up much energy.  I would beg and whine, hoping he would give in.  I would tug on his arm, trying to press him up.  Then I would get so tired of whining that I would just give up, and sit at our table waiting for dinner.

I understood why he wanted to rest.  After my short day of school, I was exhausted and in no mood to do my homework that I would needed to be completed by the next day. While I had my short seven-hour school day, my dad was working from eight in the morning to six in the evening.  And his work was much more tiring and required more patience than math-baseball and dodge ball.  But I was his daughter, and I wanted to play soccer with my dad. His duty was to play with me and I expected him to reserve some time in his day to do so. But did have three hours to myself after school, while my dad had just gotten home from work, and I was already begging for him to give up more of his time.

When dinnertime ended, I would slip on my shoes, run to the cubby were my soccer ball was sitting, and run out the door, calling for my dad to hurry up.  My dad and I would start out kicking the soccer ball back and forth.  Then he would say we could only use our right feet.  Then he would switch it to the left.  We would switch to our toes, heels or knees.  My dad always came up with new challenges for me.  He said it was to keep me interested in the sport. 

Streetlights would turn on; he would say ten more passes each.  I would try and raise it from 10 to 50.  And as we were kicking the soccer ball back and forth, we would debate the number of passes we got each.  After I passed the soccer ball to him, he would scoop it up, and say, “that’s twenty,”- ten more than we agreed.

My dad works 10 hours a day, and has four hours at home.  Those four hours are his time to relax and whined down from his busy day.  All I wanted was a little bit of his time to play soccer, when I wanted to.  But despite his long and busy day, he did always leave some time for us to play soccer.  And although I did not think to care when I was in third grade, that time after dinner was something to value.

So when I was in wildwood a few years ago I bought this spray paint painting and this is what is looks like. I will start off by telling you the major parts in this. There is a circle that is about the diameter of the board. Inside the circle there is the USA flag that appears to be the sky. Also in the circle it the twin towers that show the reflection of the American flag on the two towers. The reflection isn’t precise it is more like a watery reflection where it is kind of distorted. Below there are several other building. There appears to be a straight line of buildings TOWARDS the bottom where underneath there is a body of water. The water fills the bottom portion of the circle and at the bottom of the circle the water becomes a waterfall and flows off the bottom of the circle. The water shows a nice white foam effect when flowing over the circle, which adds some realistic effect to it. Right under the row of buildings there is a foggy mist. Behind the twin towers you will notice a few smaller buildings that show distance effect because they and they are to the left. They also show the reflection of the flag in the background. Around the circle you will notice that there are white spots everywhere outside. The artist I believe was trying to make it appear as though the circle was in fact a planet. There is a dim red outer circle the surrounds the bigger circle/ planet to show the atmospheric effect. 

(My scenes, free write, and hot words got deleted, if you would like me to work on them again I can) 

It was the beginning of a hard day. It would be full of work, work, and more work. It started off with me waking up. I woke up with a bit of a headache and not wanting to do anything. My hair looked as if I had just got done a pillow fight. It was everywhere.  I walked into the well-lit room. The sun filling me with warmth and I thought maybe this wont be such a bad day after all. It was nearing the time I needed to leave for work. Hair fixed and ready for work I brought my bike outside and rode off. 

The breeze was wonderful; filling my lungs with fresh air was much needed. I arrived to the job that I had both hated and enjoyed at the same time. Angelo my boss greeted me just as he does everyday. The smell was the same. A smell that was full of pizza goodness. My boss is a very generous man and allows me to eat a slice before I get to work. So I take a slice and sit down. I taste the delicious pizza as it enters my mouth. It fills my taste buds with joy. When I got done drooling over the delicious pizza I grabbed the some pizza menus and walked to my destination. 

My job requires me to deliver menus to doors, so that hopefully the pizza shop will get more business. It is a very tedious job. Requiring me to go up and down  must go through. With 8$ an hour I get more money then most people in Philadelphia. Kind of pathetic if you ask me, but ill take it. 

Money in pocket, pizza box in my one hand, it was a pretty good day at work. I didn’t have any problems. The smell of the pizza was permeating up through my nose. The hills were brutal. Making my legs burn with intensity as I pedaled up the large slopes. Almost home, just 3 more blocks and then I can dig into this awesome pizza. My hair was being a pain so I flipped it out of my face. BAM! Was all I heard and a car was all I saw. I stumbled, hand in pain, leg scratched up. I had lost my balance when I flipped my hair and ran straight into a car. Pain was intense, shooting up my arm. I couldn’t move anything. Hurting, throbbing, pain like I never felt before. “Is it broken?” I asked myself. My bike was twisted and mangled just as my arm was. I fought through the pain to pick up my bike and move it out of the street. The pizza box was demolished but the pizza was still in tact. The pizza was good but my arm wasn’t.

 I called my mom told her I had crashed. Away she went to the spot of my tragic crash. My arm was still in excruciating pain. The cuts and scraps that lay all over my leg have no effect on me because the pain in my arm was so intense. My mom put my bike in the back and we drove those 3 blocks back to my house. I rested my arm on my other arm. 

No smell, no sound, nothing but pain. I walked into my house. Suddenly I thought that 16 dollars wasn’t worth this. I never broke a bone so I couldn’t tell if it was actually broken or not. I have a ton of homework to do and with this pain I’m not going to get anything done. A two page paper due in 2 days, a 10 page packet due in 2 days, and even more. I’m in pain and now I’m panicking about all the work that I now have to do with only one arm at my disposal. 

I started with math. I was hungry but there is no time for food right now. My stomach is growling; mad at me because I am denying it food. The frustration overwhelmed me and I was not very successful with the math. I didn’t even finish half of the packet. Now, more pressure lays on me. Demanding that I do more work with so much pain. It wasn’t going to be a fun next day. I went to sleep with a brace on my wrist so that my wrist wouldn’t move in my sleep. 

I woke to a mother that demanded my presence, however she wasn’t going to get it because my arm was in so much pain. It was un bearable. I couldn’t move at all, not a single part of my body without wanted to scream in pain. Such a pain should not be forced against someone, not anyone. Still I knew I had a ton of homework that I had to do. 

I got up and wobbled to the kitchen. I got out the cereal and a bowl to pour it in. I poured the cereal half way just as I usually do. Walked over to the refrigerator and got milk and continued to pour milk in there until the cereal rose. Just the way I like it. I grabbed a spoon and began eating the wonderful cinnamon toast crunch as I walked to the table. I wasn’t very successful with just one arm but I got one spoonful before I reached the table. I set the bowl down and enjoyed each and every bite. 

The birds were chirping and the sky was blue. It was set out to be a beautiful day; that I of course could not enjoy. I was forced to suffer indoors and do homework.  The hours past and eventually I come to present. I sit here in pain TV in background. Still have a lot of math to do. Obviously not done this essay. 

Every time I even try to use my thumb for any reason a sharp pain travels up my arm. Making it impossible to type with that hand. Now I’m in a predicament, one hand to type, one hand to do everything, and still a lot of homework. Its now 8:26 and I still haven’t eaten dinner and I am not even half done my math. 

What a way to end my weekend. My eyes are heavy, my arm still hurts and I have school tomorrow. I am supposed to be getting x-rays tomorrow to make sure that it isn’t broken. Hopefully its not broken but I never broke a bone before. If its not broken I would hate to know what it feels like if it was broken. I probably wouldn’t be able to move my fingers at all. The smell of chicken is starting to fill my house. I sense that dinnertime is coming shortly. I’m starving, my stomach is growling and I think it is about time to eat some food. A good day at work gone wrong. A new experience in which I will learn from. Next time I wont flip my hair.