Reflection on My Writing

I think that my writing is easier and more proficient if I have pressure on getting it done. Over my 8th grade year my writing experience has majorly progressed in all different ways! I'm better at writing non-realistic stories and poems. I really enjoy writing them so it comes very easily to me.

Short Story (continued)

Everything is so different now. I was put in a foster care with 3 other children, four kids in a small 2 bedroom house. Isn’t this illegal to have this many foster kids in one house? Well, I honestly wouldn’t know because this is my first time ever being here.
Jeff, well Jeff hasn’t done anything since I was sent away. I mean he said a few “no don’t go, you’re my daughter.” It wasn’t even him shouting it was one of those, “I don’t really care but let’s act like I do” kind of thing. Not that I wanted him to care, but no one has cared for me in a while. The counselor at my school doesn’t count because she’s literally getting paid to care about me and talk to me.
My foster parent always says, “I want you guys to be able to call me mom, I feel a strong connection between us and I think its right for you to call me mom.” Every time I hear that women say that my mind goes back to me just sitting on the hospital floor helpless watching my mom slowly die, I know seems severe but that’s just how it was for me. The woman always allows me to once a week go to my mothers grave an put some flowers around it. But lately I haven’t wanted to go see her, it’s just hard to think I wasted my last minutes with her.
Counseling, of course someone whos mother had recently past an their father is a “come an go” person needs to be put in counseling. I was, and it sucks. I hate it, the people there act like they know exactly how I feel. I mean I understand they read books about people like me but they aren’t or ever will be in my position, so whenever I’m there I just want them to shut up an let me leave.
There is one kid in the foster home named Chris and he is partially in the same position I am except kind of flipped around a bit. His mom is an alcoholic and is in an out of his life and his father is a 3 time surviving cancer patient but they think the next time he won’t survive. This is why Chris was put in foster care early for “his sake”. Chris and I have this little place in the back yard where a half tree fort is built. It’s stable enough to hold us but if another person ever came up we would fall. We always talk about how our lives would be if we both had loving parents who would do anything for us an would never get extremely sick or even drunk.
I imagine my life would be wonderful. My mom would have a great paying job but wouldn’t be gone all the time and Jeff would be a part time hard worker and then be a part time dad and husband to me an my mom. But then I have to snap back into reality and notice this could NEVER happen to me. He’s too drunk to notice how much he has hurt and torn apart our family.

Just Go With It

Last weekend I went to go see the new movie "Just Go With It". First off let me say...FUNNIEST MOVIE EVER. It's about this man Danny (Adam Sandler) who fakes he is married to get women. He falls in love with this women named Palmer and when she finds out she is married she no longer wants to be with him. So he makes up with whole lie on how they are getting divorced an all this stuff. And of course when someone lies in turns into a big snowball affect. He ends up bringing in his "ex wife" Katherine (Jennifer Aniston)and her children. The little boy ended up getting to go to Hawaii with Danny, Katherine, his sister, and Palmer. It turned into a big mess with many adventures and lies slowly unfolding. I don't want to ruin the whole movie but if you like HILLARIOUS movies this is a must see! (:

A little quote I thought was cute/so true.

We are teenage girls. When we go home. Our straightened hair goes into messy buns, our makeup has faded or smudged so we just take it off. The fake smile vanishes into how we really feel, our brand new shirt changes into our favorite old sweater, our skinny jeans are traded for sweatpants or pajamas. And our UGGS are taken off to reveal our fuzzy socks…when we go home, you would never recognize us.

Short Story

“Samantha to the office, Samantha to the office please.” Those are the words I have always dreaded. I know I seem over dramatic but you don’t understand, no one will or ever has. I’m a straight A student, honor roll and everything. I am every teacher’s favorite student and school president. Never have I gotten a detention, ticket, suspension or even a “stay after class to talk” kind of thing.

Now, you’re probably wondering why I am dreading the moment I walk into the office. Let me give you a little update on life. My mom has cancer and has been cured from it twice, but both times it had reached a horrible point. Rock bottom some people like to call it, but I never hit any rocks so I don’t call it that. Both times it reached that point to a near death situation with my mom; I was called into the office. Jeff (My father), well let’s just say he’s an “in and out of my life” kind of father. He doesn’t have a house to live at, he goes hotel to hotel. Well, at least that’s what I’ve always thought. My dad always going hotel to hotel has made it so hard for me to contact him. Anytime he does show, it just makes it harder for me and my momma. The horrible smoke and whiskey mixture he brings into the house makes me and momma choke. “Samantha I bet you can already guess why I have called you into the office.” My guidance counselor told me trying to be all sensitive and pull the whole “everything will be ok” crap.

“I know why I am here, can I just go back to class..” I said turning away so she wouldn’t notice the tear drop slowly falling down my cheek and onto my lip. I know this might sound “emo” or whatever kids call it these days, but I seem to like the taste of my own tears. It just has a salty ting to it and makes me feel like the bitter stuff I was thinking or that was going on is just washed away.

“Samantha, I’m so sorry but it’s at its worst now, and your fathers back.” She said putting her hand on my shoulder, and moving her arm and hand showing me to the seat in front of her desk. I’m very familiar with that seat, it’s where I used to pour my heart out and just let everything loose and let the bitter tasting tears fall. Not anymore though, I’m stronger and I don’t need to sit there, I just need to get back to class. At least that’s what I thought…

“It’s happened to me before remember? It’s nothing new, her cancer rockets up and then my dad comes down. Just please, I can’t get behind in school; I need to get back to class.” I grabbed my book and started walking out.

“Sami, I finally found you!” Jeff says wobbling his way over towards me grabbing onto the sides of the office desk so he doesn’t lose his drunken balance. I try to act like he isn’t drunk, I’ve actually become pretty good at acting. Acting like I’m happy, like my mom is better, like I have a normal family, and sometimes like I have friends. Yes, I know you are thinking I’m a poor suicidal girl, but to be honest I have never even thought of death. It’s just I take things into a different perspective than other people or even girls my age do.

“Jeff, leave. I’m fine; I was just heading back to class.” I didn’t even look up once, but I could smell the horrible stench blowing off his leather “motorcycle” jacket, even though he’s never had a motorcycle. You’re probably also wondering why I called him Jeff, I just feel he doesn’t have the right to be called dad. A dad is someone who is supposed to be there for their daughter, call her his little princess and his baby girl. Yet not Jeff, I got “hey you girl” every day when I was younger because he was always too drunk to remember I was his daughter, or even remember my name.

“How many time do myself tell you I your dad!!!!” His voice was turning from happy to see me, to all drunken anger towards me. He flung himself off the desks and went at me; luckily my guidance counselor stopped him from drunkenly smacking me. Which personally I think wouldn’t have even reached my face.

I didn’t want to sit there and take anymore of Jeff or hearing about how bad my mother is doing and that I need to be a good daughter and go visit her. I mean I love my mom, but I know she is strong enough to pull through it and just seeing her that ill makes me feel ill.

I had left school, yes and it wasn’t even almost half of the day at school, but I needed to get out. I’ve left school early before, so it’s not like something new, I always go to my tree, right next to the cemetery. Yes, I know why go to a cemetery when my mom is in a life or death situation? Well, mainly because I always would go here and leave flowers on every single grave when I was younger, usually I would come here when Jeff was drunk.

I sat there for hours, just thinking. Why can’t I have a normal family? A healthy mom and sober dad? Friends or maybe even..I was interrupted in my thoughts when a police officer came up to me.

“Are you Samantha Celiaf” He sounded like he was in a hurry to find me and that something was wrong.

“Yeah, that’s me?” I didn’t feel like standing up so I just sat against my tree cringing my knees hoping he would notice I don’t want to get up.

“You need to come with me quickly!” he said grabbing my arm and started running towards his cop car. I never really new cops could just grab you by the arm pull you up and put you in their car without telling you what’s going on. But I guess they can.

I don’t exactly remember the talk we were having. I mean I was too much into trance thinking about what he had pulled me so fast into the car. The officer took me to the hospital where my mom was. He rushed me into a room and said “this is her!” .The nurse grabbed my hand gently and said, “Samantha, you’re mom has reached the point where this is nothing else we can do, she can still hear you but just won’t be able to respond.”

Dead. What am I supposed to say to someone who has been with me my whole life? She’s dying right in front of me and I’m sitting there like a brick wall not knowing what to say. “Mom…” I said with a stutter then I just let all my tears fall like I was sitting back in the counselor’s chair. “I love you, please don’t leave me now. You can pull through this you’re a strong woman I know you! Please mom I’m begging you! Don’t leave me…” I fell to the ground shaking. My mother, my own mother, who gave birth to me, is dying.

“Samantha? Samantha? Samantha can you hear me??” The nurse was arched over me holding a wash cloth on my forehead and putting a pillow under me. I didn’t say anything but my eyes opened. The nurse and I had one of those things where you are looking into each other’s eyes and you can tell what the other one is thinking without any words. All the nurse had to do was shake her head no. I crawled up in a ball on the ground and just cried. She was gone an there was nothing I could do.I guess I thought my mom was stronger than she actually was and I had lost the last moments with her.

I can’t believe I was so selfish. I mean my own counselor told me to go an see her because she had reached a bad point. But no, all I could think about was getting back to class hoping that would make everything better. Clearly it didn’t, and now I sit in the hospital waiting for the social services to take me away because my mother had passed away, leaving me with no guardian. Obviously, Jeff can’t take care of me.

It’s so different without my mom. I just wish I could take back the day I said I wanted to go back to class an instead go an see her. But that’s a moment I will never be able to get back.

Bullying

Have you ever been bullied or have been the bully? It’s an easy question to say no to either. Most people do because either they are ashamed of being bullied or too dumb to even notice they are the bully.

In school essentially() everyone knows who the bullies are and who is always bullied, but they rarely ever do something about it. Why? Because you are “uncool”, a “tattle tale” or if you tell…you’ll start to get bullied too. Kids are bullied because of the clothes they wear, the way they talk, where they are from, how they look, or just because they hang out with different people. Nearly 160,000 kids have missed school because of fear of being bullied because of some of these reasons. That’s a lot of kids if you can’t tell. Bullying needs to be stopped. Yes, you hear it all the time, but nothing big has occured() to stop it. 56% of kids have witnessed someone being bullied, yet done nothing about it. One in seven students is a bully victim, and of course is too scared to tell someone. Being bullied can be taken to the extreme, like someone killing themselves because of it, which is happening more often every year, that’s not factual().

Bullying is not right and needs to be taken to an end. No matter how “uncool” you will be because you “tattled" on someone for being a bully, it needs to be done. To many kids are scared of coming to school and even killing themselves because of one person or a group of people wasting their precious time picking on someone because of their flaws. Everyone has flaws, deal with it.

Speak Essay

In the story Speak the main character Melinda is just a freshman trying not to mess up her "freshman reputation" but she feels it’s been too late. The book describes Melinda's life in and out of school. There are many symbols in the book Speak that show how she has felt she's already messed up.

One thing that I feel the novel speak uses as a symbol is mirrors. In the beginning of the book Melinda was stressed out and went to her room and just sat there and cried. As she was lying on her bed she looked up and saw her reflection in the mirror on her closet door. For some reason she got up and put the mirror into her closet so she wouldn't need to look at herself any longer. Melinda also went into the senior’s area of the high school which is an area where the freshman would never go, but at that point Melinda didn't care who are what came in her way. As she was on her "adventure" in the senior area during a assembly for the school, she found a old janitors closet and decided to make it her own. For example it would be an area where she would be able to go where no one would be able to find her or see her cry because once again she knew no one would enter that area. After exploring through the old closest she noticed that there was a cracked mirror and she told herself that the mirror would have to go right away. After her second time visiting the janitor’s closet she had put a poster over the mirror that was cracked.
Another example in Speak of Melinda’s life outside of school is that her family uses little notes to talk to each other and tell each other what’s going on. In the story Melinda doesn’t really make a big deal that her mom or dad have left another note, it’s just like a daily thing. She does say it’s just the way they have communicated and that she is used to it. I feel that the notes symobize

Obviously in the novel Melinda is ashamed of herself and isn't able to look in the mirror. There are many people in this world just like Melinda from Speak. There are different ways people will react to them being ashamed of themselves. For example being suicidal and trying to purposely hurt themselves. It is a very serious issue in this world that has been going on for ages. Melinda is ashamed because she had crashed a party and everyone at her school had ratted on her and brought her down for it. Since the first day of school she has felt like everyone was giving dirty looks and stares at her. I'm pretty sure if that was happening to yourself you would feel the same as Melinda and soon the people staring at you would rub on you and soon yourself would be ashamed of your looks and who you are. I feel everyone can learn something from the Novel speak and maybe even relate to it, just remember next time how you react to something that someone else has done or something you have done because you never know how the other person or even you will react to it.