Introduction

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

Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction- My goal fo this essay was to explain how teenagers feel, but not talking about clichés. I like how I made my writing very relatable to an average teenager. I could’ve improved on my ending. The first three paragraphs were very strong but I feel like I fell off as my writing continued.

“You make happy, this you can bet, yeah,” I sang to the top of my lungs along with Beyonce. Forgetting all about the broom that is laying at my feet that I’m supposed to be using.

As I begin to break a sweat because I’m currently at the thirty-ninth song of the album I hear my mom screaming. I turn down the volume and begin to frantically look back and forth because I know I was supposed to be cleaning instead of pretending to be one of Beyonce’s backup dancers. Making me think to myself, “ why didn’t I just do as I was told in the first place?” I am a sixteen girl, with two jobs and currently, a junior in high school. You would think I have so much say so in my life but I don’t. It’s not what I say that goes; it’s what my mother says. I have so much power but then again none at all. People tend to forget how much responsibility teenagers have but then again we have so little. The definition of responsibility is the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization. Although we have a slight taste of responsibility, we as teenagers cannot fully grasp the concept because most of us aren’t allowed to act independently due to our parents.

Trying to learn how to adjust to life we begin to constantly test our figures of authority; not to be disobedient but to learn the limits. We’re not ten anymore. An average sixteen-year-old doesn’t have a certain bedtime but then again is expected to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Teenagers move in a grey area because things are no longer black and white. We no longer learn from what our elders tell us. We’re just expected to know everything, but then again we’re always told we’re “too young” to know what we’re talking about. Leaving us with very little authority. It’s like flipping a coin, starting off there is always a fifty-fifty chance of actually being the authority figure. However when you add more factors your chances either increase or decrease. For instance, if you have younger siblings or have nieces and nephew it increases the chance of you being able to have some sort of oversight of someone else’s life. With me, it’s my nieces. They are at the age of four and six. I’m allowed to discipline them but only to a certain extent. I remember a time I was back in that grey area because I was being told what to do as I was telling some else something different.

I walk through the doors and instantly the smell of buttered popcorn hit my nose. I see all the little kids run to their parents to only think about how this is probably their first time seeing this movie. They wouldn’t be able to sing along or anticipate the line. With them, everything is so new and to me, this is just a remake to a classic. I look down to see my nieces and witness how much joy there was in their eyes. We’re all so excited to see this big screen as the lights begin to dim. As always the theater is full of distractions, from yelling toddlers, ringing phones, to someone behind me smacking in my ear. My nieces wouldn’t stay still and were easily distracted because it wasn’t that interesting to them as it was to me. I constantly feel them moving and notice how jittery they were due to the enormous ICCE they had just finished. I knew that I would be rudely interrupted to take not only one but both to the restroom. Minutes later I get a tap on my leg asking can I take them. I knew it was coming so I couldn’t be too mad, and it’s not like I don’t know what’s going to happen next in the movie. Yet I still don’t want to get up to walk out of the movie theater and take two toddlers to the restroom.

Knowing I wanted to tell them no but I couldn’t because as I was looking down at them with annoyance my mom was doing the same to me. I wanted to tell them no and continue watching the movie but I couldn’t. I had no right to tell my mom “I don’t want to walk them. Can you do it?” In this case scenario, I couldn’t make a decision for myself without getting approval from another.

Kayla Kelly

English 3

9.20.19

Introduction: My goals for this essay was one, to be more organized. Two to be very descriptive. three, refrain from typing words such as like and pretty much.

     I am proud of how descriptive I wrote it because while writing this essay I thought it would be very great if I did a very descriptive description of marathoning because then you can imagine what it would feel like running a marathon. And I am proud of the ending because it was a little hard for me to write, but also because it reflects the person in me that shows people they can do anything they put their mind to.

     One thing to improve my writing process is maybe to remember to refrain from saying a word such as like and pretty much because I did delete the words when I was polishing the draft but I still typed them. And maybe try not to overwrite on the first draft.

                    My Adventure in Marathoning

“It’s the day I die,” I said to my dad at 3:30 in the morning, getting ready for a 4 am a bus for the 7:30 am a marathon, I had my blue race day shirt over my black and white windbreaker and my grey legging and did everything else in a hurry. I got on the bus with a mixed emotion of excitement and nervousness. We went to the race went inside where the tents are, Mrs.londo put down her bag to give us some brownies and disgustingly tasting GU energy gels, and while we are waiting ms. Londo told me ” if I say to go you go”, at the time I didn’t think much of it, then waited at the porta-potties for a while , then waited at the gear check , I heard the loud noise of a fog horn being blown to signal the start as the race, and so we waited a little more put our gear in to the brown UPS truck ,we went in to our coral but I actually started at 7:30 am because all students run people go in the back corral and we wait 30 minutes, I took my throwaways off so I was shivering in the cold and tearing I had no idea whether it was because I was nervous and all or it was the wind hitting my face. Then I am very close to the starting point, then I remind my self the core values of Student-Run, courage effort and respect. Courage, effort, and respect, the core value of a great leader, I am a leader, I have the responsibility of a leader. I am a leader because I am the person that does something that almost no one else wants to do, I do the things that are very hard to do I encourage people to do the right thing, I do the thing for the people who can’t, not for the people who don’t want to do it,. I have courage, effort, and respect in a lot of places, which makes me a great leader, people might say we don’t have great people around anymore, but I think there is the leader all in specific places, great people who inspire people. I am running on to Arch, I just feel happy while running in this moment, and then ms.londo said appreciate this amazing sunset over the water by 3 miles around where spruce street harbor park. We were coming on to the bridge going over the Schuylkill we saw a person in a dinosaur costume with you are going to be dino-sore tomorrow and ms.londo said appreciate this person dressed up in a dinosaur costume and I did appreciate it. Then my favorite song, Machine by imagine dragon play as I came up to 14th mile where I saw my dad cheering for me and I high fived him, then I came around mile 17 my legs where dying. They hurt so much, the right leg like as if it is being run over by a truck otherwise called the wall, but we were not taking a long walk ms.londo said so I kept going. Then again I though courage effort and respect I thought that through my wall, I am a leader, I have to show people that since I can do it, you can do it, and I will definitely get through this with or with out pain. Then at 20th mile and my pain was dying down, but Kylie and Zack hit their wall, I just told them “ I know we can do it, What I do at a time like this is I think about the end, the hot dogs you’ll eat some food, you get to rest and sit” trying the best I can to encourage them to keep going , Because that is what leaders do, but they both stopped, and ms.londo said,” go ahead” and at that time I knew what she meant by going when she said go and so I left them at 20th mile, I felt a little sad leaving them, but I was at Manayunk and they have the best cheer station with a lot of music and cheering. And so coming on kelly drive very close to being done. then I thought yes it is amazing, I am inspiring others, but it takes a team to encourage you, and build your spirt on the 20 miles. “Almost there, almost dead, but almost there,” I encouraged my self at 26 Miles. At this point my whole body hurt and was tired and drained, I felt like I could barely move my leg to the finish line but yet I still did. With some people in the bleacher encouraging me, leading me down to the finish line,” I made it, I finished a marathon “, I told my self, then I got to my team with my plastic heat sheet wrapped around my waist, then I was staring blankly on the ground for 5 minutes, then we huddled and swayed side to side, then we took a group photo, then walked all the way to the bright yellow bus and went home. At school the next day Jeremy said I was 5th in my division, then it felt like as if I wasn’t a leader because kylie would have gotten an award for being 5th in her division, if I just stayed, every time I see the plaque I see me leaving my team behind. But then I remember ms.londo said I have to go, maybe its because I inspire others, because when I started out I hated running, ms.londo once said a marathon is 26.2, my first thought was NO, but now with finishing 26.2 miles, 5th in my division is inspiring my leaders to say I inspired them with my story, so here I am releasing all of my regret of leaving them behind.