Alone

Author's Note: This was are creative piece I wrote in the Writing Lab. It is about a boy who just moved north from down south and is standing in a field while it was snowing. But he feels alone, and it is not because he just feels sad about leaving he just truly is on his own. Let me know what you think:)

As the world spun around him, and the cold air blew, he was lost in a sea of white.

What in the world is this? He thought. 

Being as he had just moved north from the south, he had never seen snow in this sort of situation. There was no way out... he felt lost with no where to go. Like he was alone in the world, with no one around. In the dark there was nothing, no one, not anything at all. Just him in a wonderful world of white

As he stood in that field thinking, he thought about a lot of different things... about his life, about his family, about his new friends he made a couple of weeks ago, and about his old friends he had just left.

I feel alone he thought... like there is no one here to help me. No one understands anything at all, about me or about anything. Why do my parents treat me like i'm three years old with no where to go in life? Why do my friends new and old not treat me with the respect I deserve? Why is my life so complicated? These just must be one of those many different things we all must face... alone.

As he was standing in his winter wonderland. Almost like he was in a snow globe, a beautiful snow globe that contained everything about him. He was alone and not just because no one was there with him. But truly because no one understood him. This new place he was calling home was just as scary as he thought it was going to be.

Even though I feel alone... and I am alone... sometimes you may just have to do things on your own, right? 

Even though he never did find out that answer, he knew it was true, and he knew that he was going to have to learn to make it on his own. This is because he knew one day, he would be on his own, with out anyone there to guide him in the right direction.

Even though I am alone now. I won't be alone forever. He thought.

And this was held out to be true. He would not be alone forever.

But for now. At this point in time... he was alone. In his own little winter wonderland. 

Courage and Bravery

In the book Just Jane by William Lavender, Jane is a little kid who has moved from England to the American colonies, leaving part of her family behind to live with her aunt and uncle in the new world. She is hesitant about it all being that, her mother died when she was very young and her father had just died recently. So all she had left was her care taker Mrs. Morley, who eventually leaves her to help out an aunt's mother. Throughout this book Jane faces many moments when she needs either courage and/or bravery. Sometimes you just need a little courage and bravery to make it through life, and that's what Jane shows in this book. 

Have you ever moved? Either to a new house or school? Even a new state? Even if you haven't the feeling of just maybe having to move can be a little scary and sad. Imagine if you had to move across an ocean to a new home with people who you are related to, but have never met. I know I would not take that as just a new adventure, I would be very scared. Jane on the other hand was not, with her care taker Mrs. Morley by her side she felt as if it was just a new start after a rough year. Sometimes she was sad and sometimes she was happy about meeting the other members of her family, but on the other hand she also missed her father who had just passed away a couple of months before. It took a lot of courage for her to get on a boat for a long trip to a new land; she wasn't thrilled about it but she never showed that on the outside. Mrs. Morley was nervous about the whole situation so helping her stay calm and staying calm herself Jane realized that this might not be so bad after all.

Even though she went on this trip with Mrs. Morley saying she was never going to leave her side, it wasn't quite like that, once they actually got to the colonies. Mrs. Morley met a new friend, Jane's Aunt Harriet's mother, and they were the same age and had a lot in common. They loved each other’s company so much that Mrs. Morley decided she couldn't let the elderly lady live on her own. For Jane being alone in a big house with her aunt and uncle, who she was currently living with, was a little scary. But the bravery she showed when Mrs. Morley packed her bags and left was amazing. I would have never been able to just let go of someone that had never left my side since I was a little kid. Even though this was sad for Jane it helped her realized she wasn't really as alone as she felt. 

One of the books that shows the same theme in it, of courage and bravery, is The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have their parents killed in a fire. They moved in with several family members who all either left them or got murdered by the person who was after their family fortune. They showed a lot of courage through out these books by not backing down to Count Olaf, the murder after their fortune. They also showed bravery by taking on many challenges in all of the different places they had ended up. They showed bravery throughout this series because they were doing all of these things without someone who really cared about them. Their parents died and their family members were just taking them in so that they would have somewhere to live. But throughout these books they learn that they are truly on their own and the only things they really have are each other.

Another book that has the same theme as, Just Jane and The Series of Unfortunate Events, is Elephant Run by Roland Smith. Nick is a teenager who lives with his mother in London England. He gets sent away to his dad's elephant plantation when the Japanese start to take over England.  After a couple months at the plantation, the Japanese take the plantation over and hold him captive, and the Japanese take his dad to a prison camp. He had a lot of courage in this entire book because he has to sneak away from the Japanese soldiers and save his dad from dying in the prison camp without getting caught. Nick has a lot of bravery in this book because moving away from the person you have spent your entire life with to live with a parent you have meet once is really scary, not only for him but it could be for anyone.

Sometimes you don't need a lot of courage and bravery to do things in life, and sometimes it's not you who needs it. It's the people around you who need to know that you're not afraid. In all of these books, all of the people learned a lot about themselves. Their courage and bravery not only saved their lives, but made some situations less freighting for others. Even though sometimes you may be scared, having courage and bravery not only helps you, but showing it sometimes can help the people around you. 

Predicting

Not everyone can have everything their own way. Your house, your car, your family, even your friends. They all have many flaws that you will come across. Nick from Elephant Run by Roland Smith, is a teenager with his life ahead of him. But he can't have anything the way he wants it-- his parents got a divorce when he was very young. He lived with his mom in England, which I have to say was not a place he really wanted to be. The worst part of all though, was he rarely ever got to talk to his dad, until the Japanese started to take over England, so his mom sent him away to live with his father on an elephant plantation in the middle of the Burmese jungle. In this book I think that Nick will eventually learn to fit in with the people on the plantation, I think this is going to happen because he truly knows the meaning of not being able to have everything your own way. 

Nick living in the Burmese jungle was his mother's first worry. Her second worry was that he was never going to be able to fit in with the people there. It would have been true in the beginning but as I read more Nick really did learn that having everything handed to you by your mom is not going to get you very far in life. He also realized that where he was, that wasn't going to change. The people he was with, they weren't going to change. The most important thing though is that how much freedom he had there, was not going to change. He was practically stranded, almost like a puppet on strings, if the people there said jump he was to respond with how high. His dad however wasn't around much while Nick was there but towards the end his dad started to shine around more. Nick was starting to figure out that the people who lived here, this was their home, this was their life, and he was just thrown in it. He came to realize that he was thrown into someone else's life and he couldn't make them change to fit what he wanted but he had to change to fit in with their lifestyle. 

Nick never had to do anything for himself in England. Of course being that he was 13 his mother pretty much did it all for him. Once he got to Burma he made some friends and became a somewhat "real kid." He was learning how to fit in not as a "normal" kid but as someone who has lived on this plantation his whole life. By the end of the book if you would have saw him on the street you would have never realized it was the same person. Nick was realizing that he didn't need his mother to do everything for him, and he didn't need his father to always be there. There were some things that he could do on his own but he didn't know that because he had never tried it. A lot of teens are like that, if everything is given to you why change that. I have two cousins who are 25 and 22 who still live at home with their parents, now I can understand why, their mom gives them money, their dad always makes sure there's gas in their cars, there is always food in the house, and all their bills get paid. I believe that anyone would stay at home if that happened for them. But Nick didn't want that, he wanted to be able to know that he could do things on his own without that extra help from his parents. Coming to the realization that he had to make sure he blended in with everyone else and also that he didn't want the extra help from his parents on some things helped him to eventually fit in with the people of the plantation. 

Since I thought that Nick was going to learn how to fit in with the people of the plantation, it reminds me of the book I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You. In this book Cammie Morgan goes to a spy school, she meets a boy named Josh who she starts to like. Every day her friends make her go into town by herself were she isn't supposed to go. Just like in Elephant Run were Nick is learning how to fit into a new culture, Cammie is trying to fit in with normal teenagers because she is not a normal teenager. Learning how to fit in with normal people took the help of Macey who was a normal teenager before she started coming to spy school. With her help Cammie learns how to make it seem like she is just a regular person just like everybody else. 

Even though you cannot get everything the way you want it, or the way that you want everything to be done. It isn't as hard to learn to fit in with other people as it seems it should be. Sometimes everyone overlooks what the true meaning of having friends and family are. Just because you don't like the way they are doesn't mean they are bad people. Even though Nick and Cammie learned how to fit in with the people who were very different from them, they knew that even though they were different it didn't make them bad people in any way, shape or form. 

Crisis

Her mom marched through the room like a bull ready to attack. She sat in the corner on a stool just bracing herself for the hit. It was scary and thoughts rushed through her head of different things she could do.

She thought, mom is obviously drunk. There is no way to look past that, and at this point in time she's a raging bull. There is no one who is here to help me, there is no one who can fix this, and there is no one out there who can save her. I'll just take it as it comes and think about it later. 

As she hit, hard like a brick wall, the girl was propelled into the wall like a sack of potatoes. She was never treated like a human being not since the day she turned three, that morning her mother had turned into a completely different person. That day was like darkness had fallen and the sun would never shine again. 

Darkness, the girl thought, is a very frightening place. 

She couldn't even remember what her mom was like before this "darkness" had taken her over, she didn't know what happened, and she didn't know why no one could stop it. 

Sometimes I feel like no one even knows it's there, except when mom and I are home alone.That's the only time the "darkness" ever shows its face. Why can no one else see that she has a problem. Is it only me? Or does everyone know it is happening and just don't have the guts to help me, help her?

That same day it all got worse as she got chucked like a sack of potatoes against the wall, her mom left. She never came back. When her dad got home from work, the phone rang... but on the other end was just screaming and then a loud noise. As her dad quickly dialed 9-1-1, squad cars showed up at the house. The sirens were so loud that the house shook and her ears rang. As the police told them the news... she realized she was finally free from it all.

The pain. The anger. The sadness. It was all finally gone.

Where does Bowling come From?

Author's Note: We wrote this in Language Arts to learn how to properly do a bibliography. 

It is unknown what year it was but a famous explorer, Finders Petrie, opened up a tomb and found “rocks” in the shape of what today are pins used in tenpin bowling. The game became so popular as royalty began to play it. The more it was played and the more popular it became, more adjustments were made to the rules and to the kind of materials they were using, boards became alleys and rocks became balls, but as it progressed into later years wood was then used and then actual “plastic” for the bowling balls. From all of this it is now a very popular game all over the world just from one guy opening up a tomb (History of Bowling ). 

Changing Lives

In the beginning of Elephant Run by Roland Smith, Nick the main character in the story is a thirteen year old, who is treated like he is an adult. Most teens feel like they are treated like either adults or three year-olds and are never treated the way they would like to be, but Nick really was treated as an adult. He lived with his mom in London, England and his dad owned a elephant plantation in the middle of a Burmese jungle, after the Japanese attacked London, his mom thought he would be safer with his dad... she was wrong. Nick was very different in the beginning of the book from the end, he didn't only change as an individual but he also changed the lives of everyone else on that plantation. 

Giving that everyone always said that he couldn't handle living on the plantation and actually working for what he got, was hard enough for him to take. But when he got there he was almost crushed by a large timber elephant, and didn't tell anyone. Until close to the end of the book I didn't understand quite why. He didn't want anyone to think that he couldn't handle it out in the middle of the jungle. This reminds me of a time when I was out on a four-wheeler with one of my cousin and got my leg cut on a tree, I had deep cuts in three places on my leg. I didn't want to tell anyone because I thought they were going to tell me that I was to hurt to continue to help with whatever we were doing that day, even though I knew I was hurt and that I shouldn't be helping. That was a bad mistake on my part but I was only seven how was I supposed to know my leg could get infected, and Nick even though he was thirteen didn't know that he had three broken ribs and that riding on the back of an elephant for three days afterwards would make him almost unable to move. His dad told him the first night he got to Burma to watch out for the elephants because they can kill you in many different ways. "...impale you with a tusk, stomp on you with their feet, throw you, bash you against a tree, crush your head in their mouths, do a headstand on your chest..." (40) Nick didn't know what to do, as children and as teens both make bad judgments on what you are and are not supposed to tell someone, when they tell you things not to do and you do them anyway.

Also in the beginning of Elephant Run Nick was just a kid, pale, chubby not much to him. Everyone could tell he wasn't going to last very long on the plantation if he didn't "man up." Japanese soldiers found him in the woods and were going to take over his fathers plantation. They dragged Nick back to the house. He was locked in a room with no food or water and was not aloud to talk to anyone. So he broke out, has any teenager ever not disobeyed their parents or guardians? I know I have and it's not a great feeling to feel on your own. Nick on the other hand was trying to save his father, when he broke out of the house and he also needed food and water. No one understood him and what he was going through in life, no one wanted to help him because they were to afraid but they still thought he wasn't going to survive in the wilderness on his own because he was still a "little kid."

Towards the end of the book Nick changed a lot, he was changing slowly throughout the book but towards the end he turned into a real man. As he was on a quest to save his dad he realized that to save him he would have to risk his own life to save his. He went into the "jail" that his father was in and found out they put him on burial duty because he was sick and if he died hopefully he would just die in one of the holes he was digging. He got help from Japanese soldiers who didn't want to be imprisoning these people who did nothing wrong. They buried his dad alive and left to give Nick just enough time to dig him up and get out of the "jail" before the other soldiers realized what was going on. He grew up a lot after that and figured out that family and friends is really all you need. I don't think a lot of people have realized that yet. Sometimes I think I haven't either and then I realize that people have it a lot worse than me, to the point were they don't even have family. I think every one takes that for granted because when it is just something you have always had once it's gone you realize sometimes you don't always get what you want, and that's what helped Nick grow up so much in the middle of that Burmese jungle.

Along the way to the end of the book he influenced a lot of people, more than I probably even remember. There was a girl, Mya, she was to afraid to live her own life after the Japanese came. She was treated like a puppet on strings, and it wasn't her fault but she let them. Nick helped her cut those strings he told her that she deserved more than this and that she should come with him and her great great grandfather to help save his dad and her brother. She cut those strings and disappeared with Hilltop (great great grandfather) and Nick to save her brother. Another person that he had a lot of influence on was his own father, who acted as if when you are working you can't have any fun. Which was okay with Nick because he got a lot of stuff done. But it was more like a chore to him than actually doing something fun because he made it that way. Nick got him to lighten up and have more fun when he was doing things so that it didn't seem like such a chore. Nick influenced a lot more people in this book in good ways and maybe sometimes bad but he always seemed to have an answer for everything they may not have been logical but they were still answers, and most importantly to the people on the plantation they were the right answers which they hadn't had many of.

All of these things that he did remind me of a character in a different book. Someone whose parents died and moved over 8 times. Someone whose journey influenced a lot of people that maybe their life wasn't so bad. Someone whose journey changed her more than anyone could ever imagine. Violet Baudelaire, from A Series of Unfortunate Events is a character much like Nick. As in Elephant Run Violet got moved when her parents died even though Nick's mom didn't die it was kid of the same situation, it was better for them somewhere else. As Nick wanted to save his dad, Violet wanted to make sure her two younger siblings were safe throughout the whole thing. Also Nick was being chased and was also captured by the Japanese, Violet was being chased by an evil villain, Count Olaf, even though she was not captured they were close to being multiple times throughout their lives. In many ways Nick and Violet are similar and in many ways they are different, but they both shared their wisdom and bravery in life with many people who needed their help. 

Nick didn't only change from the beginning to the end of the book on his own, but he also changed many other people's lives along the way. He realized many things, and didn't care what others thought about him. He knew he could make it in the Burmese jungle and he was determined to, and he did once he grew up and recognized that he needed his family and friends to help him along the way. He needed their support and even though he changed their lives, I don't think he would ever admit that they changed his too. 

Friends

Author's Note: I wrote this essay on what I don't do in a friendship that are probably some of the most important things that hold a friendship together. I have realized why with the help of two of my best friends along the way, but you will hear more about that in the piece. Let me know what you think!

To find a real friend is to find someone who knows just about everything about you. Someone who actually cares about how you feel, and someone who is there through it all so that they know what is going on. This is hard to come by. Of course there are some things I do regret about some of my past friendships, and things that I would change about each of them. A lot of those different things happen to be stuff that all strong friendships should just have, but mine never seemed to. I would have opened up more about what was actually going on in my life. I would tell them different things they wanted to know, even though I may not have trusted them 100%. I would most importantly tell them why I was mad at them, if I ever was, but most of the time I would just leave it and not talk to them. I never understood why I did most of these things until I became best friends with two very important people. Yes, we may argue sometimes, but it never lasts long, one thing I know we will never do is hide things from each other. I don't know why I never did these important things in my past friendships, but going forward I know why I won't ever do them again. 

People turn on you, it's true as much as when we are little we don't believe that it is possible to loose any friends, but it is a lot easier to loose them than to gain them. I never liked to tell anyone about my home life. Frankly I thought it was none of their business. I was at school, not at home. Why should you care about what my parents are like, and how my household runs. I have realized that they only want to know so that it isn't awkward if they ever come over to your house. I still don't tell many people about my mom for reasons that no one really needs to know. Usually I like to tell my friends about my dad. Either way they would like my dad a lot better. But sometimes it just isn't the right time to ask someone about their family usually when I first meet someone my questions are a lot more like do you have any siblings, and are they younger or older. Then if your friendship grows you will find out more. My friends just get that about me, eventually I will tell you about my home life but right away the first day I meet you I feel is a bad time to ask. Plus, I never really could grasp the fact that people actually cared and wanted to care. So a lot of the time I would just be like no you don't need to know that. Until Kaitie came around. She just seemed like the kind of person who was laid back and not judge mental. My kind of person. Are friendship started instantly, but she still doesn't know about my "life". She gets everything else like the sports I play and things along those lines. But one of the reasons I haven't told her is that she just hasn't asked why I don't talk about it, which is perfectly fine with me. The whole thing is I would rather have someone ask about it than just be like well here it all is, and this is what I realized when I started being friends with Kaitie is that if they don't ask it really isn't something that has to be said. 

Even though I think a certain way about telling people about my family. One of the other things I have found myself doing is not telling people simple questions that they want to know? Some of them aren't even that hard to answer like, "what did you get on your science test" or "What did you do in science today?" Even though the questions are as simple as that I have strong views. Surprising right? I feel like people, even my friends need to know what I scored on any test that is something that is for my teacher and I to know and not the entire school. It is not a hard thing to live with but it annoys a lot of people because they would openly tell you anything you wanted to know, I am not that way. Also when people ask me what I did in certain classes a lot of times everyone is doing something different so I tell them what I did and then they yell at me when they had to do something different. I really don't have problems with answering my friends questions along these lines if they aren't going to tell everyone. Things that aren't your business or you are just going to complain about the answer later, I wouldn't ask me about it just for a fair warning.

Getting people to understand why you don't want to answer their somewhat "dumb" questions, is a task all in itself. Telling people why you are mad at them is just about the worst thing you could ever have to do. Sometimes friends and family don't understand why you bottle everything up; and sometimes I don't know the answer. Or at least I never really thought I did. Now that my best friend Chloe and I have gone through one of these arguments it is easier to comprehend. She didn't like the way I was treating her "I was acting like a best friend" she said. I can take that I can understand that, but why couldn't she just tell me. I understand now that it is harder to realize when you are truly mad at someone, or if you are holding a grudge over just about nothing. Which happened to be what this was about. Nothing major but we had some really awkward moments. Things that people do wrong to you, don't hold a grudge. Tell it to them to their face it is much nicer hearing about it straight from the person than from the people they have told.

Realizing why you never did the important things that hold a friendship together is one of the hardest things to do, but when you have friends there to help you along the way, it just makes your whole life a lot easier. I am still working on remembering not to hold grudges and also to not get so annoyed with peoples somewhat "dumb" questions. It is going to take some time and some effort, but it is nothing I can't handle with the help of some awesome best friends along the way. 

Cause/Effect

Author's Note: This is an analysis we were told to do in the Reading Lab that focuses on the cause an effect of an event in a book. In these paragraphs you will find out what caused an event and made an effect on the story Elephant Run by Roland Smith.

In the book Elephant Run by Roland Smith Taung Bow and ancient Chinese monk leaves an elephant plantation to explore what else life has to offer. Well once he gets to Japan he can't expect that the Japanese are going to take over the plantation when he becomes close friends with the leaders of the Japanese army. He only wanted to become friends with these people, who else would expect them to bomb their country and take over their home?

First, Hilltop (Taung Bow) leaves the plantation because things are going wrong. His better choice was to leave and come back when everything was in its proper place. Who wouldn't have? On his journeys through the lands he meets some friends. Colonel Nagayoshi and Bukong, who were to become leaders of the Japanese army later in the book. He told them, once he had to leave to that they should come and visit him at the Freestone plantation in Burma, he drew them a map to were it was and left to continue his journey. 

Then, a few years later there was a war, World War II to be exact. The Japanese were starting to attack just about everyone. Once they hit Burma they had one thing to find and they knew exactly where it was, thanks to Hilltop. They sent away most of the people who lived there and took over what they called Hawk's Nest. Which is where the Freestone family lived. No one could have expected this but everything was starting to get better in the end once the war was over. The Freestones moved to Australia and Hilltop stayed in the forest with one of the timber elephants. All he wanted was for his friends to come and visit him once he left Japan. Not kick him out of his own home, send him into hiding, and almost make him go back to the country he was born in. He said to everyone that he was born in China and he was Burmese and he wanted to die on his own land. 

This is one of the most prominent cause/effect events in this book. Among others this was one of the ones that stuck out to me the most. I would have never expected that to happen to me just inviting my friends to come and visit me in my own country at my own home. But it teaches everyone a valuable lesson, which is to be careful of what you give out to people because it may not always turn out in your favor. 

Poland

Author's Note: I wrote this essay as an assignment in the Writing Lab. It's about my three cousins who were adopted from Poland last October. In this essay I worked on using regular words to make them less basic. Let me know what you think.

Poland burns a picture in the back of all their heads. They don't want to go back. They don't want to meet the people who sent them here in the first place. They don't want to even think about what happened before they ended up in the arms of Carla and Ron Dul. But why? What happened to these three kids. I realized something after thinking about my question several times. Life isn't fair, it's a quote we all grew up hearing, and throughout life we learn, that in some extreme cases, it's exactly that.

Meeting them was an experience all in itself. Having them show up at my house, get out of the car, with the look of fear in all of their eyes. They were beaten, abused, had alcoholic parents. But no one would believe them. All of them are just like me, we share the same passions, four-wheeling, being in the woods, and just being loud and goofy. But they couldn't do that where they were before not at all not ever. Being on the four-wheeler with the two youngest of the three was a day I will never forget. 

“Dzien dobry” (Good Afternoon) as we are on the four-wheeler and Michal and Ola look at me and say this meaning good afternoon in our language. They start to tell me their story, not just bits and pieces there life stories. They were thrown, not just thrown onto a bed, or into the coach jokingly. No, they were thrown. Into walls. Into the floor. Into their dining room table. Crying, screaming, shaking were not allowed. If you did one of these things it was done again and again and again until you stopped crying or screaming. Pretty much until you collapsed onto the floor and then they were kicked, hard like a dog who just bit a little kid. Again and again and again but this time harder. I would never be able to take this, let alone having it done to me at 5,7,8 years old. I couldn't even imagine having this done to anyone. Let alone living through it, and telling the story. It was scary to hear this and it was only part of it, I stopped and hugged them both for a long time all of us in tears. I whispered in their ears “Ciesze sie, ze tu wszyscy teraz twoj.” (I’m so glad you’re all here now) 

After we sat there for a little while longer I had a couple of questions not about their lives in Poland, but actually about them. Since they had gotten here maybe a couple hours before I knew their names that was it Sylwia, Michal and Ola. They were adopted from Poland, that was it, all I knew,  nothing else. So I asked them when their birthdays where, if they liked school, what grade they were in and they answered me in perfect English they had been in our country for no more than a couple of months. I was so proud of them and it was really cool to hear their accents on English words. 

Having family adopt kids from Poland has been an experience. It has had its ups and downs but we have made it through it all, together. I couldn’t have asked for more well behaved kids or more fun. The more I get to know them the more excited I am that I have new family and it almost feels like I have known them forever. Their lives before this still weren’t fair. I don’t think they could have ever been. But, it’s one of those things, everyone has heard it one time or another. As much as people can wish that life is fair, in some cases it never really can be. So we move on and learn that life isn't fair.

Conflict/Resolution

Author's Note: This piece is about the conflict/resolution in the story Elephant Run by Roland Smith. I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of my book.

In the book I have read Elephant Run by Roland Smith. The main conflict is that the Japanese have taken over Burma and the elephant plantation, and are holding people hostage in prison camps. This means that as the Japanese soldiers start to push themselves through Burma they are sending more people in to prison camps. If this is something that no one is going to be able to stop it could mean big trouble for all of Burma. This is a person vs. person conflict because you have one army fitting against another and ultimately come out with a winner on top.

This conflict could get resolved when the Burmans come together and break out of the prison camps all through out their country. They have built an airfield and a railroad, that the head of Japan has been making them run. They know all about what the Japanese are planning and are going to be able to take their country back once they realize that if they come together they can concur the Japanese. If the conflict doesn't get resolved nothing is going to go right for the Burmans, all that they will have left to look forward to is dying in a prison camp under the watch of the Japanese.

Courage, Hope, and Honor

Author's Note: I wrote this essay in the Writing Lab for a DWA piece. It is about people who don't know the real meaning of courage, hope, and honor. Let me know what you think. 

Courage, Hope, and Honor are hard things to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or mistake. You can have hope based on things you “need”.  You can have honor based on just history. You have to use all these things to make your own life yours. But, you’re not supposed to question adults because they have all of the right answers. Is that really true, it all depends on who you are, what you want to be and maybe where you came from. Sometimes no one understand the differences between these three words. That’s why life is such a tricky thing. Should you always do what the adults in your own life tell you to do, or should you make your own path. Take that path no one else is willing to take because if you make your own life decisions you will turn out better than the people who where dumb enough to follow everyone else.

But what are courage, hope, and honor are they really as tricky as people think they are or do you figure out what they are when you choose your own life path. Courage, is the ability to face fear. We all have fears in life but do we all really confront them? I will say that I claim that I face all my fears, I don’t. I am really scared of dogs, when I was three I was attacked by one. It gives me a good excuse to be afraid of them, right? Not really I should really suck it up and act like I’m 13 and move on but, I can’t get over that fear and I don’t think I ever will. When I was little my uncle told me that facing my fears proves to everyone else in the world that it is possible. My uncle faced his fears when he had cancer for ten years before he passed away in 2010. I will make sure that I eventually concur my fear of dogs, just like my uncle concurred his fear. All though it will take time for me to get over that hump, as much as it scares me. But being scared isn’t always a bad thing either is it? It goes with courage, you have to be afraid of something in order to have the courage to face it.

Even though courage is one thing some people don’t understand, I think a lot of people don’t understand the meaning of hope. Their meaning of hope is that they hope they get a car for their birthday, or they hope they get that shirt, or something that they really want or “need”. That’s not the meaning of hope. The meaning of hope is that something good will come out of something that isn’t going very well. Growing up I hoped two of my uncles wouldn’t die from cancer. Well you know what those kids got that car and got everything they wanted, and guess what I didn’t get my wish and I was really hoping that someone would finally give me what I wanted but, I learned something after they both passed away though,  it was that everything happens for a reason. You can hope for anything in the world and sometimes it’s just not good enough because that’s what happened in their life and you can’t change that, but the best part I got out of it all was that they were proud that they were themselves and lived their lives to the fullest and you know what the honor of being yourself is 100 times better than being the copy of someone else.

All though when I was thinking about hope I started thinking about honor. Honor to me means that you die trying for something important, or that you are your own person, then you have both honor and courage.  I hope that everyone understands the meaning of honor. All Americans had hope on 9-11-2001. All Americans had hope on the day Pearl Harbor got hit, and even though both of these were really sad times for our country we realized, that we are free and able to get through anything. That is why hope and honor fit together so well. Sometimes though I feel like our country is far from honored to be together as one, I hope that everyone in America is honored to be an American and be proud that we can make it out of anything together.  

That’s why courage, hope and honor are such tricky things. It’s not because of their meaning in the dictionary, but because of what they mean to each and every person in the world, and how they help make each and every one of us different by our meaning of what these words represent. But the question here is, should you always do what everyone else tells you to do. If I had to answer this I would say that I am going to choose my own path in my life, my other answer would be it’s up to the person you’re asking. You should hope for courage and try for honor, and maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do know what they’re doing before the choose your life story, or will you let them. So are you going to follow everyone else and listen to the people picking your life story for you, or are you going to make your own path in life, the answer is only up to you, no one else.  

ELEPHANT RUN

Author’s Note: I wrote this as an assignment in the reading lab, to see if we could write a retelling of out favorite book we read over the summer.

Elephant Run is about a boy whose dad gets taken away by Japanese soldiers, from the family elephant plantation. His world is turned upside down when he is locked in his room under the control of the Japanese and not given any contact with his father. When he is eventually taken out of his room he isn’t sent back to his mother like he was told he was going to be, he was lied to. 

THREE TRUTHS AND A LIE

Author's Note: I wrote this paragraph about how my middle name is combined between my mom's name and my dad's name. I worked on trying not to write run on sentences because I have been.  

My middle name is combined between my mom’s name and my dad’s name. Well before I was born my parents didn’t want to know if I was a boy or a girl so they had to decide on a boy’s name and a girl’s name. Well the boys name was the easiest they took my dad’s dads name Curtis and my mom’s dad’s name Paul and said if I was a boy my name would be Curtis Paul. Well they had some weird girl names picked out to but settled on Morgan but couldn’t think of a middle name that would work, and apparently one day my dad was on his way to work and thought about the middle name Carol. He was thinking about it and used the first three letters of my mom’s name Kar for Karen and the last three of his ale for Dale. So my name was Morgan Karale and it’s combined between my mom’s name and my dad’s name. Well no one in my family can spell my middle name because it’s not the generic way to spell it. But the nice part is, is that I’m not the only person in my family with a weird middle name. My older cousin Taylor has a weird middle name too. Her middle name is Frances after my uncles grandma, and we all call her Frank because of it. So weird middle names are common in my family apparently and you know what we really don’t care because we like our names it’s not like we had any say in it.   

BOWLING

Author's Note: I wrote this creative piece about bowling in Writing Circles. I wrote about how bowling is a harder sport then anything else I have ever seen. But it looks easy because bowlers make it look that way.
 

Bowling is not an easy sport. Everyone says that bowling is so easy and that the hardest sports are football and basketball. Well some people also say bowling isn’t a sport same with dancing and cheer-leading. But their actually wrong those are all sports every one of them, but I also have to say that bowling may be harder than dancing and cheer-leading and football. This is for one reason only and it’s because you can practice all of these sports in your backyard bowling you can’t do that and it’s definitely not a free sport not like any sport really is. In bowling you are trying to get a 14-16 pound ball 60 feet from the foul line to the head pin which doesn’t seem that long because bowlers make it look easy and it’s not. Also dancers may have to hold uncomfortable positions for long periods of time and have their feet hurt but at least at school your sitting down most of the time so your not always on your feet. Bowling your fingers swell up and your feet hurt and your back and shoulders hurt and your knees hurt it’s pretty much totally pain all the time. Also dancers and cheerleaders may have 3-4 hour practices. I have to go in everyday right after school and bowl 3 games and then stay for even more practice so from most of the time 3 o’clock in the afternoon till about 9 o’clock at night everyday give or take. Also sometimes I get called in at like two in the morning because my coach forgot to run something with me and this is before school dancers and cheerleaders don’t have to do that. It’s pain that is all worth it though because ever since I told my dad I wanted to be the best at about 4 years old he got me a coach. Well I learned over the years I am only as good as the people I can beat and strive to be better than the people I can’t beat and then when I run out of people to beat I am the best. Well to achieve this goal it comes with the pain and the swelling and the torn shoulders I mean I take the pain because I want to be the best not because I just like to bowl I want to be the best and I’m determined to get there.

WATER

Author's Note: I wrote this piece about water in Writing Circles. In this piece I worked on explaining how water makes me feel and not just a random story about water.

Water makes me feel… like I can just have fun and that life isn’t all stuck in a subdivision, in a town, where you can almost reach out your window and touch the house next to you. You can’t control water just like you can’t control life; water goes where ever it wants to and same with people. Water is what people think of when they just want to get away and think. I always look at water when I just feel like thinking or play in water to make everything else disappear it makes me think of being free and not being stuck in my house and trapped. Water is what makes me feel good. Water is just what it is it’s water you make of it what you make of it and different people think of water in different ways, but water is just as simple as that, water is water.

COYOTE

Author's Note: I wrote this creative piece on coyotes for are writing circles. It is about a fake story of us seeing a coyote up north and in this piece I worked on trying not to make run on sentences.

One day we were walking down the street and saw a shaggy dog run across the road into the ditch at Grandma’s house. We were looking at the water and on our way back there was this, what looked like a stray dog, and then when we saw it and actually could see it we realized it was a coyote. It jumped out of the ditch and ran away down the road. It was really scary seeing a wolf sort of thing, shaggy dog whatever it was it didn’t look normal. The coyote didn’t even bother us almost like it didn’t notice us but it makes me think and kind of laugh, to think about what would have happened if it would of attacked us I could have seen my mom rolling into the ditch on the other side of the road screaming and sobbing and me not knowing what to do which kind of made me chuckle a little bit to myself. But it didn’t attack us and just walked away like we were nothing. Later that evening we heard him hollering at the moon and realized that it was the coyote we had seen earlier that day.

BE A LORAX NOT A ONCE-LER

Author’s Note: In this essay I worked on developing a variety of methods to begin sentences and paragraphs and increase the use of complex vocabulary. Also I worked on improving methods of transitioning from one paragraph to the next to a proficient level.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not” (68).  A common way people interpret this quote is if you care about something a lot then do something about it don’t just stand back and watch it get worse.Some people do not care about the environment and it’s mostly big companies like the Once-ler and his Thneeds, exampled in this book. In The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, all of the characters have a very symbolic meaning in the world, and if you think about it you can see just what all of their purposes are. You have to start to care more about the ecosystem than you already do because the environment is the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal and plant lives and operates, and in this story the Once-ler just kept on thinking about how he could make more and more money and not about what he would leave behind once it was all done and over with. Readers should make a connection between the make believe characters in this story into real world situations, and what we can learn from history so history doesn’t repeat itself. Earth is our home and you have to be able to make the change and not just hope it happens.

There are four main living things in this book that have a really big meaning. Yes, they may just be made up animals or trees or plants. Besides all of those things if you really look and try to understand what all of these things mean, you will find that they all have real world connections to them. The one thing that was the hardest for me to connect to and truly find it’s meaning though were the Truffula Trees, and then when I really thought about it I realized that they represent agriculture. Which is the science or practicing of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products. This kind of reminds me of the rain forest if we keep clearing the rain forest then we will loose animal populations that will have to travel elsewhere to get their needs met, many will become extinct. Every year an area of rain forest the size of New Jersey is cut down and destroyed. The plants and animals that used to live in these forests either die or must find a new forest to call their home. Why are rain forests being destroyed? Humans are the main cause of rain forest destruction. We are cutting down rain forests for many reasons, mostly including: wood for both timber and making fires, agriculture for both small and large farms, land for poor farmers who don’t have anywhere else to live, grazing land for cattle, pulp for making paper, road construction and extraction of minerals and energy. The Once-ler did only a couple of these things when he cut down the Truffula Trees. He cut them down to grow his business and then also realized that he could build bigger roads and then a bigger factory. He should have realized that for every tree he cut down he should have planted five new ones, but he didn’t think of that all he did was hurt the environment.

Even though Truffula Trees have big meaning in this book so does Grickle Grass. Grickle Grass represents the thistled mess we will be left with if we do not care for what we have been given. Grickle Grass is what you would be left with if you cut down all the trees. Trees have more meaning than most people think. Animals use trees to live in and they also use them for protection. Also trees help hold the brush down like the Grickle Grass, and the Grickle Grass ends up being the only thing left because everything moves away and it’s not a good environment to grow anything. No one wants to live in a world full of Grickle Grass, it would almost be like watching paint dry, you have nothing to look at and trees not only give us oxygen to breath but they also make the world more interesting to look at.

Grickle Grass is important, but so are the animals that live in the environment. The Bar-ba-loots, along with the Swamy Swans and the Humming Fish represent the lifeforms we are disrupting by polluting their environment and destroying their habitats. This relates to the polar bears whose habitat is being destroyed because of all are pollution. Animals habitats are being destroyed because no one cares, and if they do care their not trying to do anything about it. Yes you will see polar bears in zoos but their not going to be where they belong. This is just like what the Lorax said to the Once-ler “Your glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed! No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed.” (56)What this means is that even though you think that all of your polluting isn’t going anywhere or doing anything, it is it’s endangering all of the animals in are rivers, lakes and streams.

The Bar-ba-loots, Swamy Swans and Humming-Fish are all really good examples of animals that are being endangered, but the Once-ler is the most important figure in this whole book. The Once-ler represents big business’s  that are to busy looking at the profit line to take heed to what damage their business is doing. They see the “EPA” (United States Environmental Protection Agency) as a nuisance. Once in a while they will stop and give help to a given situation but mostly they think of the EPA as a bunch of tree huggers. This is exactly what the Once-ler and the Lorax were. The Once-ler was the big business and the Lorax was the EPA. The Once-ler looked at him as a nuisance and wouldn’t hear him out in anything. All the Lorax was trying to do was prevent what the world was going to end up to be. Which is what we all have to do. You have to learn from history so that history doesn’t repeat itself. We should all learn from the story of the Once-ler. So that this can be prevented in the world because the more you destroy the ecosystem with pollution and cutting down trees, the less oxygen we will have and more and more animals will start to die off.

The Earth isn’t just a place for us to live it’s our home, we have to care enough to make the change not just hope it happens. “It’s not what it is, it’s about what it can become ” (70) What this means is that we can’t look at the world as just a place to live and then not worry about anything else. We have to look at it as what it can become. This is because it already is one way but we have to find ways to make it better. Everything we do effects us in some way, the more we protect are environment the better it will be and the healthier of a world we will get to live in. So look at it as what it can become not as what it already is and then maybe we can keep the story of the Once-ler on paper and not in real life.

CONNECTIONS

Author's Note: In this essay I tried to explain why the people you think can help you sometimes always can't. Also I was trying to work on my goals of transitioning between paragraphs and developing different sentence begins.   

“I know all those astronomers I’d watched an hour earlier on CNN can explain just what happened and how and why and they’ll be explaining on CNN tonight and tomorrow and I guess until the next big story happens. I know I can’t explain, because I don’t really know why.”[…] “But the moon wasn’t a half moon anymore. It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn’t rising. It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way to visible. You could see details on the craters without the binoculars that before I’d only seen with Matt’s telescope.(19)  Some people think they know everything, whereas there are people that know they can’t help you but try anyway. It always seems to turn itself around on you, and the people you relied on the most are useless and the unhelpful people turn out to be the ones that take charge. Sometimes the “helpful” people in the world, like in this case, the astronomers, could not help anything, and the citizens had to live with the moon and try and just figure out what’s going on. Life as we knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer. To the readers always try to succeed in the things that you do and try to be successful but even though you do have a big scientific job where you think you can help you will never be perfect at it. 

In this book Miranda and her brother live in northern Pennsylvania with their mom and an asteroid hits the moon and brings it a lot closer to Earth. In their little town this was really cool and everyone on their street was out to watch it. When the asteroid hit there were some cheers and then as the moon started approaching earth there were screams and people were running all over the place like chickens with their heads cut off. No one knew what was going on. I feel this way sometimes when I’m given directions and don’t know what I’m doing. When I have to run a machine that could kill someone while were splitting wood I feel a little uneasy. These people were unsure of the unknown and were scared. 

Even though being scared was a big part of this book second guessing yourself was another. Their where people second guessing God because of what was going on, and their own choices because they didn’t know what to do. But the biggest thing was when people in the town started arguing with each other and eventually everyone was second guessing their actions. I have second guessed myself every since I was really little. But what seems to be the biggest thing I’m doing know is second guessing whether my bowling ball will curve or not on the ally. So I swing my arm across my body but the people of this little town had bigger things to worry about.

This was a book that I really had a chance to connect with it was hard at first but as I read deeper into the story I could really understand what was going on. I never could understand why I second guess myself or feel scared when I know I’m doing something right. But in this book it really helped me to understand those things, and it’s all because I want to make sure everything comes out perfect in the end which is never true because nothing and nobody is perfect. Everyone is like that, not only me it is hard to just understand why. But now I know so don’t ever try and make anything perfect because it will never be but you can always try your hardest to succeed the best that you can.

CHANGE

Author's Note: In this essay I tried to work on how change not only affects you but everyone around you. Also I tried to work on my transitions between paragraphs to give it a better flow to the paper.

Your left all alone in a city where everyone is turning mad and you have to fend for yourself and your two younger sisters, you would be scared. Which is what happened to Alex in Susan Beth Pfeffer’s book The Dead and the Gone. Now and then life throws you curve balls and you have to catch them and run with all you’ve got and on the way you may change.

 Change is a big thing that different people experience in different ways. Slow change is easier to adapt to than fast change. Leisurely change consists of something along the lines of you take something and slowly change it to something you like. In this book slow change happened not as present as fast change but it was still there. The main characters realized that their parents were never coming back. That was hard to adjust to at first and then the realized that they had to live with it and move on. Occasionally things like this may happen and you have to move on and deal with the consequences.

Even though slow change is hard to deal with fast change sometimes hits really hard and you almost don’t know what to do. Alex, the main character, was hit hard like this when he realized that he had to keep himself alive and his two younger sisters. Even imaging this would be hard, on how this could even happen. Often in the way; that you have to roll with the punches and not let anyone or anything get in your way.

Even though slow and sudden change is hard to deal with personal change hits home in this book. This is because the main character Alex changed so much from the beginning of the book. Even though in the beginning he was just a normal 17 year old with a job and a family. But then when his parents disappeared he kind of took on the parent role of his two sisters. It was really hard to connect with this book though because I have never been put in a situation like that. I’m the youngest in my family and have no siblings.

This book showed me how change affects the lives of not just you but everyone around you. You can just be stubborn, and want everything but you have to give a little to get. That is a hard lesson to learn because when you want something you want it and then when you can’t have it you don’t want anyone to say or do anything to you. So sometimes when you catch that ball and run with it you still have to remember the curve ball was thrown at you first before you got to where you are now.