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.