“Here. Set an alarm in my phone for next year at this exact same time. Then I’ll tell you what it means.” I grabbed her phone and found my way across a sea of useless applications until I found the one worth finding at that time. I configured an alarm for July 25, 2011, 3:47 pm.  This would be the only way I could ever try and figure out why they decided on this. Fast forward a year later. I run outside to help my mother and father with groceries from the car. My bigger feet and slightly longer legs graze the top of the pavement, down the steps and towards the car. My extensively longer hair bounced as every step I took sent a shockwave to my chubby face. I proceed to grab a bunch of bags from my mom’s car, avoiding my dad to grab me in the process. At that time, my mom’s phone started buzzing in her pocket. “A call?”, she murmured to herself. She slowly pulled out her phone and moved her extremely long hair to the side of her face. I proceed to run up the stairs when I hear a call from my mom to come over. I dashed to her side and look up at her smiling face. She then holds her phone out in front of me with the alarm going off. “Do you want to know now? Why you have such a ‘weird name’?”
As the excitement rushed to my limbs, I started to flail about the sidewalk and up the stairs, into my house. My mind configures a massive number of questions to ask, as the mystery behind my name is slowly revealed, piece by piece. “What does it mean?” “Why did you decide to call me this?” “Dad had the same name too, right? Why name me after him?” In all of the names that are so common to the human race, why make a name that causes someone like me to stand out? For someone who doesn’t stand out? It like the name drags me on a stage with a gathering of people watching me. Confused about what I say. And I don’t say a thing.

“Men-doo… Men…” My teacher struggled to form the vast array of syllables and pronunciations that she has never encountered before. Her mouth contorted in strange ways as she failed to enunciate the 7th name down on the attendance sheet. She leaned towards me and points at a name that is very noticeable on the vast array of names in her hand. “How do you pronounce this?”, she said with a nervous smile. “Menduyarka”, I said, enunciating every syllable slowly so she could understand what I was trying to say. She repeated what I told her out loud, half-heartedly. I don’t remember if she even pronounced it correctly, but she did say it oddly enough to gain the attention of the classmates around me. Every time I roamed the halls, I would hear people mispronounce my name. Most of the time, it’s unintentional. Other times were just to make jokes. Variations were developed to make saying my name easier as every year went by on the calendar. From “Menduyarka” to “Mendy/Mendi”, to “Mancake”, to “Man-Arctica”. These variations evolved over the years from adorable, childish nicknames, to names with some strangely odd definitions on Urban Dictionary. As the years went on, and I developed into a teen boy, I decided to hide something about me that would only make things progress a little bit slower. “Menduyarka” became hidden under the facade I used. “Samuel” is what I became known by after “Man-Arctica” became very annoying to hear. I can totally describe it as a “handful of consonants and vowels that were pulled from a Scrabble bag.” “Menduyarka” became a part of my life when my dad was named the same thing when he was born. My grandmother came up with the name way before he was born, so it WAS planned. I have no fucking clue where it comes from, but after searching on the internet, I figured out it “wasn’t common in the U.S.” I’m technically not a junior because “Menduyarka” and “Samuel” are switched in the name positionings we have. He’s “Samuel Menduyarka”, and I’m the opposite. Every encounter with someone was like rolling a dice. There was truly a ⅙ chance of someone pronouncing my name right when it came down to it.

This paper has been a great opportunity for me to explore my parents divorce and what affect it had on me as a child and now as a teenager. I didn’t realize until now the depth that this went in to and I’m glad I did. Having divorced parents has made my life so much different from if they had stayed together.

The bell rang like angels in my ear telling me I could come home after a long day at school. However, the angels were quickly shot down by the demon known as Ms. Kolansky who told us to stay in our seats so we could tell her what we learned that day. We were all so ready to leave that we could hardly remember the day we just had. I looked at the numbered circle on the wall like it was a ticking time bomb, like my dad was going to leave me if I didn’t come out into the schoolyard on time. I hadn’t seen him in a week and it was my first one-on-one day with him since my parents split.

Ms. Kolansky dismissed us after my friend Zoe told her that we learned about what palindromes were. I ran out of the room like it was on fire. My bag was only on one shoulder and my hair was like a horse’s mane behind me. I pushed through the heavy blue doors at 3:12 and scanned the schoolyard which was filled to the brim with small children running after each other and parents talking about how they should get together some time. My dad stood out in the corner being the tallest guy around with his aviator sunglasses and balding head. He raised his hand to confirm that it was him and he waved me over. I sprinted in my rainbow knee high socks and black converse to him and hugged him. He smelled like cigarettes and his work uniform felt like a cat’s tongue but I never felt cozier. He hugged me and asked about my day, I told him it was good. He handed me a canvas bag, I looked inside and there was an empty notebook. He told me it was for my art. He knew me well.

He took me to a restaurant that I’ve always loved and I ordered the mac and cheese and he stole a few pieces of my edamame. This was good, it felt normal. Like it used to be. I had been handling the divorce pretty well but that’s because I didn’t really understand what was going on. All I knew at that point was that dad wasn’t living with us anymore, and it sucked. I missed the feeling of him belonging in that house. So we finished eating lunch/dinner at around five o’clock and we started heading back home. A few minutes later I was walking through the brown door that mom thought was green. Dad followed me in and we sat on the rough red couch but we still had an hour left before it was time for our one-on-one to be over. He asked what I wanted to do and I told him I didn’t know, we decided to play a board game. I pulled out Othello from the plywood cabinets that my mom had fixed up when we first moved in. They scraped the back of my hand and fingers as I pulled out the cardboard box. I walked barefoot on the hardwood floor around mom’s dining room table onto the brown carpet with different sized red and orange dots. We sat there for an hour, going from playing board games to drawing to talking. It felt awkward, like we weren’t supposed to be there. Even though it was my home and my dad had lived there my whole life he seemed on edge and things were quiet.

My mom came home at 6:00 as planned, and the look on her face was confusing to me. She looked like she couldn’t decide whether she was confused or startled. She said hi to me and told me to go up to my room. I hugged dad and ran up the open steps, clinging to the railing mom had made out of iron pipes from work. I ran once I got half way up right into my room which was right at the top of the stairs. I grabbed for the lock on my sliding door and pulled it so that I could still hear the conversation my parents were having. They were yelling at each other again about how dad can’t be here anymore. I ran to the back of my room and grabbed my notebook. I picked up my pen and started to draw what I was feeling, salty water shared the page with the ink. That night I cried until there were no tears left and there were no more pages in my notebook. That night drawing was my security and comfort. It has been ever since.

This essay was an writing experienced I enjoyed, the freedom and lack of creative boundaries made the process interesting and introspective. The goals of this paper were to find a deeper meaning in the roots of my brother’s adoption, there are a lot of family dynamic issues I am currently struggling with and I thought if I explored areas of our past I could try to understand and solve them. I also really wanted to practice recounting memories and using interesting descriptive language to paint a picture for the audience. I am really proud of some of my imagery and the structure of my piece, this step by step story style is one I enjoy writing in. It is like a film where the character is learning the same information at the same time as the viewer. Some areas of improvement are my more personal parts, the analytical side felt a little thin in earlier drafts and I want to work exploring this emotional side of me in my writing. I tend to feel a lot of things but I find it hard to solidify them into words on a page.

I was an only child for five years. I do not have a lot of memories from this time, but I do remember the moment I was first introduced to my younger brother. My mother entered our living room, while I was toying with the velcro on my shoes as I watched an endless television marathon of PBS kids. She was holding scraps of paperwork in her arms, her hair was awry with a few strands reaching towards our ceiling. She pulled herself down to my level and extended her right hand, a polaroid sat before me with a picture of a small hispanic baby. He sat in a makeshift tub made from a red plastic bucket, he was in a concrete room with a small window behind him revealing a guatemalan sky, the stars were brighter there.

“Who’s that baby?” I asked, sucking on the collar of my shirt. “He’s your baby brother.” My mother replied, a distinct gleam of joy in her tired eyes.

The following weeks consisted of me being a bystander to the adoption process. My parents sat up all night at the dining room table, papers in heaps around them, covering every square inch of our ikea catalog furniture. I lay on our on the splintery floorboards and observing my father rub his sunburned neck as he read document after document. I watched as he flipped a cigarette between his fingers and tried to count the number of furrows in his brow. At school I would sit on the rusted climber with my group of friends swinging my legs and speaking about how even if he wasn’t born from where I was born he was still my brother. One of the boys said,

“That’s messed up. That’s like calling your dog your mom.”

I then replied, “but Bradley, isn’t your mom your dog?” We didn’t speak for the rest of elementary school. There was this air of aggression and confusion that followed adoption, many people assume it has to do with conception issues and would often grow uncomfortable at this implication. There was a strange confidence I held throughout though, I knew he was my brother even before I met him. It didn’t matter that I was only five, I felt a kinship with this boy. I probably received this strength from my parents who wanted to adopt since they married. They spent all their lives researching and finding the most effective means of raising an adopted child, the found the Guatemalan adoption system the easiest to maneuver and then they found the boy in the polaroid.

After a year or so, my parents began traveling across the world to visit the boy. I stayed with the neighbors and their son. I slept next to his dirty basketball gear and ate clam chowder every night for two weeks. I would call my parents on their landline every other night and ask about Guatemala and what the planes were like, but I could only speak for five minutes because it cost too much money. Every time the kitchen timer would signal the end of the call I would panic and cry.

Finally, after a month since parents returned I was able to travel back with my mother to bring the boy back to our home. I wore my favorite wool hat, with a plastic spiderman logo stitched onto the front. I would run my tiny fingers over it as I gaped at the towering glass walls of the airport terminal. I remember gripping onto the elastic waistband of my Target jeans to stop them falling as we sprinted to catch our flight. The plane was cramped with many people yelling in Spanish, as my mother checked her watch and bopped her knee I sat calmly watching us leave the ground from the window. My mother smiled at me as she placed a Kodak film cartridge in my father’s Super 8 camera and proceeded to film me silhouetted by the passing clouds.

We left the airport. This was my first experience away from the first world, I had only seen a life of duplexes and skyscrapers and was unprepared for the aesthetic of an impoverished nation. There were slums lining the craggy road made of tin roofing and dried mud, the nicer homes were cinderblock shelters housing families of eight or twelve. I saw pregnant thirteen year olds and old men dusted with red dirt, you could see streaks of clear cheek paved by tears of irritation. I was filled with a sadness and guilt that followed these images, I felt scared and bad because of it. I had never seen such living conditions, but I am glad I have so I can appreciate the present.

After an hours drive we entered the city known as Antigua. My mother filmed with my father’s camera, she captured grainy images of thousand year old architecture painted with stone colored pigeons. She captured young children in bright handmade clothes silently dancing to the ticks and flaws of the film strip.

We then entered the apartment of the boy’s caretaker. The caretaker’s name was Hilda and she had golden teeth, she was the tallest woman I had ever seen because her knees reached my spiderman hat. She picked the boy from his crib and handed him to my mother, then we walked from the doors and boarded the next flight back to Philadelphia. As we sat in the blue leather seats of the American Airline’s plane, I stroked the bridge of his coffee nose and leaving in the middle of the guatemalan night. And when I looked into Toby’s shimmering eyes I realized the stars were brighter there.

Adoption is a choice a family makes, it brings many feelings into one’s household. Toby is a proud member of our family but there have been times where others have felt strongly against his relation to us, even he has struggled with his grasp of heritage. Personally, I will love Toby until I pass because he is my brother. I have watched him switch from velcro to lases, I have seen him sled for the first time using a trashcan lid, and I have seem him dance to Ray Charles in pajamas and my father’s suit jacket. I know that our family is unconventional, but it is a family nonetheless.

Introduction:

I wrote this essay with the theme family in my head. Recently, my family has had to overcome a lot of challenges, and I thought about the good things, memories, and souvenirs I have from just being around my family, and the many more memories to come. I hope that when people read my essay, they are reminded of some of the good times they’ve had with their families, and how important it is to stay united as a family.

Essay:

People are born into this world with no accountabilities, no responsibilities, fresh and new. No ties to anything- wait. That’s not true. We are born with only one tie, the tie that gave us life. Everything and everyone that is born knows this tie, and it is ultimately up to the person, or fate whether they want to keep it connected, make it stronger, or sever it completely. This tie, would be more familiarly known as just a 6 letter word: family. My mom was the first person I ever saw in my life, and from the moment I saw her, the connection, the bond that was made is still to this day indestructible. After I met my mom, I met my sister, who is 3 years older than me, and to this day I cling to her more than anybody else. Since day 1, my mom has taught, and still is teaching me the meaning of family It’s crazy, let’s not deny, when you’re a 17 year old teenager in her junior year of high school, who also has a job & does extracurricular activities, you don’t get much family time. My older sister and I have both been busy off trying to work to start our lives. That’s how it’s been for quite some time ever since we started getting older. However, we always found a way to be a family. That’s something I’ve always admired about us. The 3 of us have always managed to stay a united front, and I’ve learned so much about love, family, and just being a good person from this connection that started when I had only been on earth for a matter of seconds. Family vacations mean the world to me. I love them so much. Just getting away with the people you live with, is not only relaxing and refreshing, but it gave me a chance to experience new things, and learn about different cultures with my family. From a young age, I was exposed to many cultures, food, behaviors, and I keep all of these life lessons with me today. My mom taught my sister and me how to behave when in a restaurant, to be polite & courteous to people, and to mind your manners at all times. I remember the first time we ever took a really big trip was our first trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. “Naihema and Zahirah! Let’s go, the cab is outside! Let’s go!” was the scream I woke up to at 9:00p.m one July night: the night of our trip. We had tickets on a midnight train to Providence, RI. We were going to be on the train all night, and by 12:00p.m the next afternoon, we had taken 3 shuttle buses and were in my grandpa’s car on our way to our hotel on the beach. The car ride was humid, with the familiar salty breeze that blows from all beach towns. It was sunny and the road was clear as we zoomed to our destination. I remember I felt my heart jump, and a warm feeling spread throughout my whole body. It was the first time I’d been here, seeing the wonders of this place had me entranced, and I felt greedy because I wanted to just hold it all in. We spent 4 days there, and in those four days, I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. I spent those four days talking to my family, laughing, and having fun. I was so young then, but I knew as soon as I left, that Massachusetts had an effect on all of us, and we left that place with more understanding of the world, and of each other. “Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind.” When I was younger, my sister and I loved Lilo & Stitch, and we had that quote hung on our wall in the room we used to share. I feel as though my family’s home life was some of the most influential time in my life. I looked up to my sister as though she walked on water, and my mom as if she actually was magic. I wanted to be just like them. As a family there are millions of memories of afternoons spent being lazy lying down spread across the living room watching movies on Saturday mornings, eating Sunday dinners at the dining room table, discussing our week, and smaller things, like just sitting with my mom at the dining room table creating art. The stained glass models that hang in my living room window, are all a part of me and my family’s history. They symbolize infinite memories of childhood curiosity, and creativity. My mom loves arts & crafts. Out of the 3 of us, she’s the artistic one. Every so often I would hear her call out “Naihema, Zahirah, let’s go to Michael’s and get some kits!” From a young age, we would spend hours together as a family, either sitting at a table, or the living room floor, watching a movie and doing arts & crafts. The room would be filled with laughter, happiness, and love all around. Every time we finished a new glass, my mom would set it out to dry, and we would swap out the ones in the window, and every time they symbolized a new memory.

Introduction:

This essay starts with my drawing of Wu Zetian, then it leads off to 婴儿塔(baby tower). In this essay, I discussed about about Wu Zetian, what she did, some discriminations women faces, and such. Like slaughter millions of cute little babies just because they are female. My goal of writing this essay is to reflect on what is the reason why women often got discriminated against, and the society still view it as normal. As for improvement, I need to improve on my grammar, go straight to the point, and stop repeating some stuff.

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Another afternoon, another day. Rays of mischievous sunlight had managed to escape from the curtain, casting warm yellow hues. I sat on my desk, pencils in my hand, my imagination dances freely. On the paper is my interpretation of Wu Zetian. She is standing up in a red and gold Tang dynasty dress, coming out of a fog shaded with light red and gold, fading away. She is holding her arms out shoulder height, to the left and the right, as if she is embracing the sky, the world, feeling the wind blowing against her, tasting the unfamiliar taste of freedom. Her long gold sleeves drapes down from her arm, almost to the floor, but the bottom curves, and covers all of her forearm. In the center of the sleeves, is another strip of sheer red silk, a little wider than a palm, that flows all the way down.

Imagine a kimono. A kimono with gold and red highlights. As a matter of fact, kimonos come from China(Han dynasty clothes, Tang dynasty clothes, and Wu clothes). The top is just like a kimono, with the crossing collar. Except in this case, it’s more revealing and bold. The crossing of the collars happens at the waist, where the wide waist belt is located. Under the first golden layer is a small red layer, and underneath that, is a strip of wide fabric across her chest in the color red. Then we have the red waist belt. The dress itself is of a gold a shade darker than the rest, going all the way down and fading. In the middle of the dress, taken up about a third of space is a bright red strip of fabric, also going all the way down and fading.

A woman in gold, a color only the emperors can wear, for the first time ever in history, astonishing.

It’s almost as if it’s the ghost of Wu Zetian, standing there, holding her arms out, looking down at the world from a tall tall tower.

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Another day, another afternoon. I stares at the drawing of Wu Zetian that I had hang up. “But why did I draw her?” I asked myself.

Taking a trip down the road of memories, many memories swipe by. The picture is of Wu Zetian, the first and only empress in power with a title, in the long five thousand years of Chinese history. The most powerful women in the history of China.

She is a tyrant, some said. She gave women more rights at the time, and busted the economy, others said. But to me, I don’t care if she is cruel or not, she got it done, she did what she, and many Chinese women want to do. She gave women a life more free than before, a life where they are not caged birds, a life where they don’t have to follow the ridiculous rules setted up by men, a life where they are setted free. Even though it didn’t last.

Wu Zetian rose to power and stay in power until her death, in this world dominated by the males, and granted women more freedoms. Even though it didn’t last long. Women were basically slaves before that time. But she did it. She did it. She unlocked the cage and give women freedom for as long as she can.

So I drew her, holding her arms out, as I imagine how she would, embracing the sky, and looking down at the pitiful world. A fog of golden dragon and blood behind her.

The male dominated world, now ruled by a female. Domineering.

But next to her, on the left, is another drawing of a girl in a green and pink Qi Pao. Submissive looking. Ironic, yet contrasting. Traditional and submissive lady, innovative and ambitious empress, side by side. Funny.

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Again, another day. That day, I was reading an ebook as usual, then an unfamiliar word pop into my view. What? 婴儿塔? Baby tower? Tower for baby? What? Why? I asked myself.

So I open up a new tab, as what I tend to do. I copy and pasted the word, and hit enter. Wait, what? 福州(Fuzhou)? Isn’t that the city where I came from? I clicked it open, not knowing what I should be expecting. First thing that pop into my view was a old black and white picture. In the picture, there is a tower, it looks like the traditional Daoism tower, except it look shorter and stubbier. Creepier.

Okay, okay, let’s keep on reading, “A photograph taken by an english female photographer in the late 19th century?” okay? But what is the tower for? “It is normally half a meter tall,” Oh, that’s tiny, it is like a doll house? “Baby tower, is use for the babies who are about to be drowned. ” Wait a second, what? Okay, just keep going, it’s getting more and more creepy. “During Qing dynasty, it was peaceful. The population starts to increase rapidly. Drowning babies become the trend. Millions of female babies are slaughtered. The gender ratio become really unbalanced. ” Wait, wait, wait, so you’re telling me, people start mass murdering female babies in 1890s already? Before the one child law was even a thing? “Local people starts to build a kind of tower, called baby tower, on the countryside. Instead of drowning their own babies, people starts to put their babies in the tower, and let the babies die on their own. They think it’s better in that way, and they would feel better. Then more and more people starts to following the examples.” So, tell me, how could you kill your own babies in a different way and feel better? How? “Of those babies killed, most of them are females.” Off course, off course, it’s the females. Off course. (source: http://fj.people.com.cn/fuzhou/n/2015/0430/c354243-24690512.html)

Do Chinese really hate to have daughters that much? Thinking about that made chills go down my spine. My body, shaking. Why? Why? I forced myself a bitter smile, yeah, right, traditionally, females are lower than males. Since, supposedly, a daughter would be married off one day and become someone else’s possession, so daughters are useless. Why would they want something they considered useless?

Chills, shakings. In my head, I am see babies, crying, lying on a pile of bloody bones and rotten flashes, slowly, slowly, their chest stopped moving. Why would you give birth to them, then just slaughter them? Why? Why females? Chills, more chills, shaking. Why do people always have to put females into the lower class than males. Why?! These kind of stuff even happens today, just instead of leaving the female babies in the baby tower to die, they would left the female babies in a house, in which they will be bring to an orphanage.

Coldness. Why is it, when men do some things, it’s okay, even worth praising or bragging about, but when women do the exact same thing, they are disgusted, discouraged, hated.

I hate it, I hate it, when those men, who doesn’t do anything, despise a woman, just because she is a woman. So just because we are females, we have be submissive, stay at home and do chores? I don’t get it. I really don’t. Yeah, of course, none of those people had come out from a woman’s womb.

I should be nicer and less aggressive you said? Oh, do you mean I should be more submissive? 凸 ^_^ 凸 (Nope, I am just showing you one of the many Chinese characters out there.)

May be, we, the women, have been too submissive and too docile for too long. For so long, it becomes normal for us to be viewed as a lower class in society, even as properties. A lot of times we just overlook it.

Introduction

This essay is about my person experiences in and out of school being a Black Female in America and people’s assumptions on what that means. I feel like people think I am a certain way based on my appearance and that’s not fair. I face racial profiling and falling in line with the people that I have fought my whole life to make sure I am nothing like everyday. I believe everyone in their life has been misjudged before and can relate to my story.

I am loud. I have a naturally loud voice. My friends are the same way. We laugh and we make jokes all the time, that’s what friends do. I do not speak in ¨proper tone¨ all the time because I do not feel the need to. I wear name brand sneakers, weave, tights, and fake nails. None of this has to do with me being black. I feel like because I am black people associate things I do, say, and wear with my entire race. I get stereotyped as the typical mean loud ghetto black girl all the time and that’s just not who I am.

I’ve been looked at this way for a long time. I remember talking to people who are even now my friends and them saying that when they first saw me they thought I was going to be such a bitch because of my face. My facial expressions categorize me as a squidward even though my personality is much more of a spongebob. We get wrapped up so much in people’s appearances that we lose focus on actually getting to know someone who could potentially be an amazing person. Everyone faces this kind of judgement in their life at some point. Based on what you have on that day or based on what you look like people are going to assume something about you that may or may not be true. In my case it was not true.

I am not ghetto. Every black person is not ghetto. Just because some of us act a certain way doesn’t mean all of us are this way. That’s like saying every white person is racist just because some of them are. It is not fair or right to assume based on the little information you know about a person or race to judge them. The word ghetto is used to describe a poorer part of a city usually home to multiple groups or minorities. By calling me ghetto one, is literally referring to me as a minority and saying they are better than me. The first time I was called ghetto I was in the 6th grade. My classmates found out I could not pronounce breakfast correctly. ¨ You sound like someone from the south ¨ they said, ¨you have a ghetto accent¨. Now I’ve been dealing with the way I say the word my entire life. I have always made a joke about it and everyone usually gets a good laugh at hearing the word said a different way than what they are used, but never have I ever felt so ashamed about the way I said it. In that moment I felt belittled. My classmates made me feel less then them then just as someone does now when they call me ghetto.

I think that the problem in current times is that everyone assumes things. You assume that because I speak loudly, I’m uneducated or because I wear certain clothes I’m a ¨thug¨ or a ¨hood rat¨ when both are invalid. I speak loudly to be heard. I spent so much time in my life being silent that when I finally realized I had a voice I discovered it was a loud one. I and the people I associate myself with are seen as that noisy troublesome black girl group. Freshmen year I and those same girls were accused of bullying someone who we were in fact not bullying but because we were who we were we couldn’t defend ourselves. We weren’t even allowed to speak on what we were accused of, they just assumed we did it based off little to no information. Yes we are loud. We laugh loud, we yell loud, we are a loud friend group that’s just who we are. Being loud and being angry are too different things but both also correspond in how people see myself and others like me. Based on someone’s assumption we were bullies and that’s how we were seen the rest of the school year. One little assumption destroyed all of our freshmen year.

Being a young black women in America is already hard enough. Issues like police brutality and black on black crimes is something I struggle with everyday. I don’t need to come somewhere I consider ¨safe¨ and be racially profiled, I don´t deserve to either. It already feels like the world is against me and my kind in this day and place that we call the ¨free world¨, so their are not a lot of places that I consider to be safe for me to be my true self. I thought I could be at school but it is very apparent that I can not be. In order for me not to be obnoxious or ¨hood¨ I would have to silence myself and lose who I am and that’s just not something I can do. Why should I? Do I not have the right as an American citizen to do and say as long as it is not bringing harm to anyone? Or do I not have this right because I am black? I am not going to change. I am going to continue to be loud and I am going to continue to dress and speak as I please. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem not mine.

With this piece, I wanted to first connect to my own childhood and show how I grew up as a reference. I then connected the piece to a memory of visiting the Titanic museum where I first realized all of the changes in how people are being raised with technology and the impact it is having. I then went into my analysis and explained all of the negative impacts I am seeing on my own brother who is struggling to detach from technology. I can see it is taking over our society and throughout the piece I want to show how we are losing morals by doing so and how apprehensive I am about technology growing. I am proud of the way I told the stories, because I feel like I pushed myself to use a lot of descriptive language to make my story more compelling. In the future, I would want to make it a bit shorter so that I can really work on getting my point across.

This is it. Now is your chance. There it is. There’s the aisle. “Mommy…”, I said. “Yes Emily.”, my mother responded fully expectant of the next few words to jump off of my lips. “Can I get a Barbie?”, I asked as sweetly as I possibly could with a menacing little smile. “How many dolls do you already have”, my mom said matter-of-factly. “Not that many! And I don’t have any with a sparkly dress like this one. Pleaseeeeee”, I begged. Once we got home, I wildly searched through the matching plastic bags waiting until I found the doll, introducing her to the rest of my collection. I would sit in my room with the box of barbies for hours, talking to myself acting as each different girl. My mind would never tire of moving the plastic people around, creating scene after scene. I could keep myself occupied and simply change their outfits to inspire a new plot. Creativity was a constant flow through my veins just like any other child of my generation. We didn’t rely on anyone I didn’t realize just how much the times have changed until I stepped back and saw how my siblings have been raised. Pieces of the changes I see in them have been left as bread crumbs for me to discover. I found the bread as it all suddenly hit me. This past summer, my family flew to Ireland to visit my relatives. A new exciting experience that was first on our list was the Titanic museum. As soon as I stepped through the boat-shaped glass building, I was transfixed on each artifact hanging on the walls. I read every board to drown myself in the stories of the great tragedy. As we walked through each room and each exhibit, we reached a darker room. As I walked through, there were transcripts of the final communication with the passengers of the ship. There was one worker who stayed in the engineering room to communicate with the other ship sent to help rescue them. “Come quickly. Please hurry. CQD(the old fashion version of “SOS”)”, the worker sent in morse code. “We are on the way”, the ship sent back. Moments later, the worker would send another message. “Please come quickly. The boilers are almost filled. There is not much time. CQD”, the worker said. “We are coming as quickly as we can”, the ship responded. “The ship is sinking quickly. CQ————(radio silence)”. That was the final transmission ever sent from the Titanic. I stopped as I read, chills rolled down my spine and each hair stood up on end. Each dead body had a name, a family, a story. With each word I read, I felt myself growing and learning. I was so in touch with life in this moment. I walked through the exhibit with a heavy heart and a million thoughts buzzing around in my head. I looked around at everyone else walking through, wondering if they felt the way I did. I was met with blank faces. My eyes darted around the room until they finally landed on two boys running through the exhibit with their eyes locked on their bright iPhones. They rushed past each picture, artifact, and piece of history and stood by the stairs never glancing up from the technology. Every ounce of blood in my body began to boil. One of them was my own brother. I was absolutely speechless. The fact that my twelve year old brother had the audacity to breeze by a hundred years worth of history like they were nothing but scrawny morsels of words strung together limply, and had dried up without a single meaning to them. At first, I was tempted to scream at my brother, because he knew better than to disrespect everything this museum, and humanity, stood for. Or did he? My brother was only a small window I looked through to view the larger issue at hand: the new generation. They are being raised in the age of technological advances, which seems to be slowly consuming them. Their childhood is being stripped down the nothingness. Barbie dolls are being replaced with iPads. Creativity replaced with Netflix, real life replaced with artificial conceptions. My brother couldn’t disconnect from his phone for twenty minutes to learn about a real event and discover. He was so ignorant to everything around him, much like millions of others in society. I grew up aware of my surroundings and valuing people and my creativity, while he is growing up in a world where Facebook friends he’s never met are more important. I didn’t have pointless Apps to absorb hours of my life, instead I interacted with others and the world around me to expand and teach myself tools I would need growing up. My brother is missing out on this, and has already surpassed his window of creative childhood. It is sad to watch him reach for his Xbox controller instead of a book, or a soccer ball. Social media and these technologies have become artificial priorities and are taking over. Supposedly we are gaining more from technology, but I see it eating away at the youth. There is nothing to do but sit back as the barbies are thrown away and the iPhones take over.

Intro:

My idea for this paper was to show how my relationship with my parents has grown over the years and, as shown through my gifts, I really appreciate them, especially my mom. I mention that as I’m getting older and as I’m maturing, I am thinking more of others and I am adding more emotion to my gifts that I give her.

Essay:

This year for Mother’s Day, I wanted to get my mom something really special. The years before, I hadn’t really given her anything that was spectacular. It was mainly just cards that I had made, or little things that I had painted. But this year I knew that I wanted to do something different.

In previous years for Mother’s Day, I do remember the day that me, my dad and my sister went to a ceramic and art studio. We had no idea what was going to come out of our time there, we weren’t sure about anything at that point. This idea was kind of a last resort thing since Mother’s Day was so close and we still didn’t have a gift yet. A week before this, we had my sister’s birthday party at the same place and we really liked it here. Walking through the door, I felt a cool breeze hit me along with the chill from outside. My dad talked to the person at the front desk about some things that were available to paint as a gift. Most of the ideas that she mentioned didn’t really appeal to him, until he heard her say that they had big salad plates available. She went to the back of the studio and brought out a big ceramic plate. It was rough to the tough, almost as if it was sanded down before it was brought out to us.

At first when we got the plate, we tried to come up with ideas of what would look good on the plate and what would look nice in our kitchen. We decided to go with a cooking theme because my mom loved to cook. The next thing that we had trouble with was deciding what colors we would use and more of a specific design. The first thing that came to mind was wine because she loved cooking with it and it went perfectly with the theme. We drew it out and as we continued drawing, everything started coming together. Around the rim of the dish is speckled paint that is not too thick and not too thin, just around the rim or edge. In the dead center there is a painted wine bottle that says Pinot Noir in the center of the wine bottle as a label and in the top right hand corner of the label is 2012. Under the word Noir is a thin squiggly line and also on the top of the word Pinot. At the spout of the wine, the cork is short and shaded. The inside of the outlined wine bottle is also shaded. Near the spout of the wine bottle are four thicker winding lines, thicker than the squiggly lines on the wine bottle. 

As I worked on those things, my sister had a different design in mind that didn’t really fit the theme. She started to paint flowers on different parts of the plate and at first it was weird, but then it started to look okay because it added some color. I wanted to make the lines sharper on some of the flowers, so I walked over to a set of cabinets that had little bottles of paint that you added a metal tip to and it made clean lines. They only had a few of those tips, so we had to wash the ones we used with warm water. I was about to rinse the tips and when I turned the water and stuck my hand underneath, I burned myself with the water. I felt the pain rush up my hand into my arm. I felt stinging my hand, so I quickly switched the water to cold and it instantly changed the pain in my hand. Next to the wine bottle on the left are flowers, the one on top is bigger than the one on the bottom.

So we drew the wine bottle on the plate and came up with an idea to paint grapes around it. I remember agreeing with that idea, but then not knowing how to paint grapes. The lady overheard me and handed me this long stick with a small end that was almost like a dotting tool and a large end with an even larger dotting tool. I tried using that, but dots ended up being too small and the shape was weird so I just used a paintbrush instead. Right next to the wine bottle on both sides are bunches of grapes, the one on the left wraps around the front of the wine bottle. Under the bunch of grapes on the left of the wine bottle, to the bottom left hand corner is a little open cook book illustration with the words Cookbook underneath it. Next to that is the word Pasta. Slightly above that to the right a little is a little drawing with rainbow swirls and hearts. Right next to the bunch of grapes on the right of the wine bottle is a flower that just has the petals outlined. Right above the bunch of grapes on the right side of the wine bottle is another flower with outlined petals. In the open spaces are squiggly lines, but only a few. It started to come together really well.

My dad slowly added things that helped make the plate come to life, like little illustrations of a cookbook and words like Pasta and Cookbook. When we finished painting the details, we looked at the plate and noticed that it was missing something. So my dad thought that it needed a border and he also added some squiggly lines in places that were empty. Then we told the lady that we were finished and she wrote our names on the back and put it in the kiln. She told us to pick it up in a few days. After a few days past we went to pick it up and once we got there, we saw it and said that it looked great and that my mom would really enjoy it.

This year was completely different for Mother’s Day. I was out with my friends, when my parents and my sister had gone to my aunt’s house for the day. We were shopping for clothes for the upcoming comic con at the Central library. I remember that in the morning when my dad dropped me off it was chilly and rainy, which didn’t help with a hurt ankle which I sprained earlier that week. We all met up at a Starbucks that was on 20th and Market because it was closest to H&M, which was the first store we wanted to go to visit. I walked into the Starbucks and instantly a gust of cold air hit me. I saw my friend sitting by a big window, holding their rainbow umbrella, waiting for others to show up. A few minutes after I walked in, my other friends tapped on the window for us to meet them outside.

After going to a few stores, we got something to eat at Wendy’s and some of us went to Five Guys. When everyone was finished eating, we went to Liberty Place to take a gander at what they had to offer. We went to a few stores such as Express and Bloomingdales. We didn’t find anything we needed in those stores, but after looking through a few more stores, we finally found this clothing store that was small and not a commonly known shop, but had things that we needed to complete our outfits.

I wanted to go to Bath & Body Works while we were in Liberty Place, so me and one of my other friends went there while the others were checking out of the previous store. As I walked into the store, my nose filled with various aromas and my senses were awakened. I noticed that they were having a sale on hand sanitizers, 5 for $6. Above the display, I saw another sign that was talking about gifts for Mother’s day. I asked the lady at the front desk,

“Hey what is the mother’s day sale?”

She said, “You can make your own bag or set of body washes, lotions and sprays for a certain price.” So I went to the section that she pointed to and started putting things together.

On the way back home I was thinking about previous years, what I got her and how she reacted. Those years in the past I realized that each year my gifts were like an upgrade from the previous year. As I was getting older, I was thinking more of others and giving myself more to people. I was becoming more emotional with my cards, I was using words and memories that I knew would mean something to her. The cards turned into 2 page letters, the little hand painted things turned into things bought with my money and the little poems written by 7 year olds to meaningful words written by a mature 15 year old.

When I got home, I re-wrapped the gift and added something else to it. I also found a really nice little gift bag to put in that kind of fit the theme of the gift that I got her. Later in the week I wrote her a really nice little heartfelt letter that came to me as I went along. I had to hide it in my room until it was Mother’s Day. On Mother’s day when I gave it to her she read the letter first and as her eyes went down the paper, her eyes filled with tears. When she finally opened the gift, she gave me a big hug, thanked me and told me,

“This is one of the best Mother’s Days yet.”

Introduction:

This paper follows the idea that memories are usually idolized in good benefit and we seem to always neglect the bad parts about it. It tells the story of multiple events in my life that I always loved and remember and I decided to name the negative things about each situation that we all know about but never say. I am very proud of my analysis in this paper, and how I connected my stories back to my main idea. Also, I love my anecdote and how I went back to that idea in my conclusion. Some things I feel I could do better with in the future is adding dialogue into my story and let it run smoothly throughout the essay. Also, I hope my descriptive writing is good enough for the reader to feel exactly what I felt when writing this story and understand the idea of the entire paper.

I Want to be a Child Again by Tia Roberts

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The sound of a roaring and shattering killer of a lavish night of sleep. I slowly rise, eyes barely allowing me to see the full sight. The red lines marking a distant six, zero, zero. Just minutes of sitting there in my head soon turned into longer times in reality. Rushing to get ready for a day I knew I would surely regret; full of tedious classwork and never ending periods. Reminiscing about a time when life was so easy and simple. When very complex situations were more obvious. Allowing myself to be free to my own extent. Being young was a blessing, but it also has its setbacks. I miss the idea of childhood more than actually living a child’s life. 

Running on the hard cemented ground where the pebbles felt like thousands of small hills my feet soon had to climb. Approaching the cold metal gates that were almost five times my height. Looking through the diamond shaped holes which opened a hole of happiness within my body. The sight of kids and laughter was all I needed to fill my body with a bursting dose of excitement. I loved the park, it was always my favorite place to go. But as time goes by I realize the pain I always endure; from the leaking blood streams of my knee or the plumping purple blisters that covered my fingers. I remember crying about every little scrape and always needing a person right by my side to take care of it. This made me question my constant need to be in this situation again. As we get older our memories of childhood all seem to be happy and something we wish we could relive, but we tend to forget all the negative aspects of our memories. When we think of the park we focus on the fun of it, like all the games and friends we made during each visit. We forget to mention the times when everything wasn’t so perfect at the park. Like that time when I lost my favorite toy, or all the red swollen hands I would take home just to ice because of the monkey bars. Not only did these constant bumps and bruises affect my cry baby childhood, but also my now partially adult life. The whole scenery of parks no longer resembled fun for me. Just many dull swing sets empty of life with all it’s tears in it’s hard black material. No hope for the slides filled with unrepairable marks and uncleansed kids. Childhood must have just sounded better in my mind.

Crawling on the warm fuzzy carpet from the playroom to my bedroom. The lights in the living room always had a gloomy look to them. Constantly observing the world around me was something like a habit. Having nothing to worry about but your own actions was one of the best features of childhood. Not a care in the world. Crawling up the steps felt like rock climbing because if I went too fast I would tumble and fall. But the fall was not my biggest fear. The fear of not reaching my destination was the biggest one. It crossed my mind more times then my body hitting the ground after missing my next step. Having the freedom to make my own moves was a good thing; until you realize that there was always a larger restriction. My imagination ran wild only to soon be caught by the ones who always towered me. Shadows of figures grew bigger and bigger, it seemed as if my day of play soon turned for the worst. No more running, no more toys, just lay in the bed and make no noise. But I loved playing with my toys from the play room and making a scene. Naming them and dressing them up how ever I wanted. Discovering that this feeling doesn’t last was like thousands of knives stabbing me in my chest. My idea of childhood has abandoned me and left me with unpleasant memories. This has now helped me escape this imaginary world of where everything is all fun and games to open my eyes to reality. The reality that not everything is good. Life when we were younger always seemed to backfire on us yet we praise it as a time we wish we could have back. No reliving, we continue on.

Daddy’s little girl sounds like the perfect title as it left the lips of the over towering stranger. Proud to be called that name, which left smiles on so many faces. Everything about it seemed perfect until I realized the importance of the title and all the actions that came with it. Always wanting my father and hugging him until my face loses most of it’s oxygen. Calling for him day and night and always wanting the comfort of him near me. “Daddy!” Sadly this wasn’t particularly my reality. Hugs went to the bear that was fluffier than a bed of marshmallows. Taller than a child like me and sweeter than a sweet tooth. I was a mommy’s girl which you don’t hear often but even so, as the years went on the bond slowly faded. The child that always wanted her parents became a child who could now explore an undiscovered world without them. The idea of the towering strangers became stranger than the idea of no comments at all. I realized maybe I like being the age I am.

Loud alarm clocks became smoothing beeps. Swaying side to side as I awoke from my sleep. Starting my day of a newly found adventure, now seemed like the greatest thing in my life. So yes I sat through my tedious classes and never ending periods, but it all came with my freedom of life and freedom of expression. Yes being young may have its ups and fun moments but it can also bring you down. Childhood is not always as amazing as it sounds. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I’m ready.

 Introduction:

My goals for this paper are to relate my feelings of anger and my experiences with myself to the audience, and inform them. I’m proud of some of the parts where I feel like I relate my ideas well, and also some of my descriptive scenes from memory aren’t too bad, I think. Apparently my transitions aren’t very good even though they’re fine and if they should be better than you have to tell me what’s wrong with them (a wonderful example of passive aggressive anger), so my transitions could be improved and my ideas and analysis could be better and I’m sure everything could be improved.

 Essay

Things make me angry. Lots of things make me angry. Everything makes me angry, and anything can make me angry with the right circumstances. I am an angry person, but you might not be able to make the case that I have anger issues as I have developed an amount of self-control in the last few years. It’s not difficult to make me angry, but one of the things that makes me angrier quicker than anything else is time. More specifically my time being wasted.

Unfortunately for me and the people who have to interact with me on a regular basis, this happens more often than I’m comfortable with. Many of these instances involve my family members, as my mom seems to love wasting my time slightly more than she loves my sister. It doesn’t matter the activity, she’ll find a way to waste time. Going over to my grandparents? Let’s stay over there until 9 o’clock on a Tuesday. Running into the grocery store to buy milk? Apparently we have a lot of things to buy. Even something as mundane as driving home is subject to this uncanny ability. My mother and I were driving home when she decided it was time to stop to stop for some art.

“No.” I pleaded. I don’t plead often. This had been an unexpected stop, hence my pleading. We stood in the tent, plastic on four sides which did nothing but enhance the oppressive heat. We were encircled by art, or “art” as many would consider it. I am one of those. The abstract paintings surrounded us. And my mother just happened to pick out the worst possible one.

Now while these detours frustrate me, there is another type of time-commandeering that infuriates me. I only have two days in the weekend, and a lot of work to do in that time. I like to spread it out, pace myself properly. This puts me on a very tight schedule. I have “x” amount of time to do work, “y” amount of work to be done, and “z” amount of downtime. Yet, nearly without fail, I am interrupted. I can understand when there are things scheduled for the weekend, things to do, errand to run, and I am fine with doing them. As long as I know ahead of time. And sometimes, I am not so forewarned. And during a particularly busy Saturday, I can get angry.

On this particular wasted Saturday, I stormed into my room and slammed the door. It doesn’t take much to slam my door, but I gave it the extra push just to prove my point. I glanced at my phone, the time reading 5:02. God. Damnit. I did my best to control my anger. This limited the outlet of my rage to the nearest throwable object, which just happened to be a pen. I took a few breaths in which I thought about my situation again, and promptly threw the pen at the wall. I let out a sigh, almost a groan but not quite, and slumped into my chair, which had begun to crack quite badly in places. I checked my phone again, 5:03. I had to leave in a few minutes. I stood back up with a groan that was almost a sigh and angrily picked up the pen as angrily as you can do that. I looked around the room again, then exited, not quite slamming the door this time.

This isn’t holding anything against my mom, merely accentuating how much I value my time, and providing a reason for why. She has taught me to cherish it, for it may change owners at any moment. As I said, when things are scheduled everything is fine. I am willing to sacrifice time with very little complaint if I am given the proper notice. But if not, then the examples above show the reasons for my anger.

My anger, as annoying as it is, is an integral part of who I am, it’s part of my identity. I somewhat enjoy being angry, as counterintuitive as that may seem. As my classmates and friends can attest to, I am the short kid who get’s angry at everything, give or take a few adjectives. And I embrace this openly. I’ve had a degree of anger problems for a long time. I can remember getting mad at the tiniest little things in first grade. But as I grew older, I learned to control it better (not perfectly, but better), harness it even, in a similar fashion to the “If you embrace your faults then no one can use them against you” quote. I’ve even said I’m at my best when I’m angry. So, all in all, it’s almost a good thing that I’m always angry.