Adapting to the morning commute is one of the biggest challenges I face with the welcoming of the school year. I peel my eyes open as they shudder against the bright light that my mom turns on in the morning. Without fail, I fall back to sleep for another thirty minutes before emerging in a rush from my warm cocoon as I realize that I, once again, have overslept. After I hastily complete my morning routine and open the front door it feels like I am opening the refrigerator door, which is when I remember that I forgot my lunch and I run back inside and grab it. I once again enter the cold outdoors and the car engine breaks through the early morning silence that has not yet lifted. With my trusty little passenger by my side we embark on the same journey we have taken every day for five years now. The cycle as only just begun.
Two and a half hours ago, exhausted from the school day, I walked into the theater, mumbling goodbye over my shoulder to the people I had kind-of-not-really been talking to. I wanted to be part of the cast of The Crucible, even though I doubted that I had any acting ability. Unobserved, I slipped into the theater. People were onstage, backstage, sitting around. The space had never seemed so insurmountably huge, the lighting never so harsh. I found someone to sit with, and dutifully did everything that I was told to do in the way of warm-up exercises. I proceeded to read through various scenes in the script. Suddenly, it was 5:30. Walking out of the cozy little theater, the light seemed warmer. Was it only that the curtains were closed and the lights turned on, or was it possible that I had actually had a great time?
My sister comes barging into my room. "I'm looking for something." She says as she swoops around the room, her arms outstretched ready to grab the thing that's on her mind. "Well, are you going to tell me what it is? You can't just come in and not tell me what it is your looking for." She's interrupted me in between my work and I've yelled at her. She stops swooping. She closes the door on her way out, grumbling something I can't make out. But, it doesn't matter. As soon as the door shuts, a rush of guilt fills me. People always tell me that I'm a great sister, my sister tells me herself. But, I don't feel that great. I get irrationally angry. I yell. I argue stupid arguments. I close my door and I lock it. All these things are my worst actions as a sister and, in this moment, the sound of the door banging shut still rings in my ear. I might be a good sister sometimes but, to be a good sister, you have to be "on" all the time. I am not. When I am in a bad mood, she knows it and, sometimes I even take it out on her. I feel horrible but, she forgives me anyways, which is somehow, always the worst part. No matter what I do, no matter how bad I am, she'll always forgive me. Because she's Siham. And has too big of a heart.
In many ways my summer was very relaxing, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that I did not have any homework. Waynflete is an excellent school but the intensity of the work creates an tangible anxiety. Last night, as I sat on the couch in the little room we call the study, I started to feel it. I was pouring myself into the questions about the history reading, and as the clock ticked past 9:30, it began. My heart began to protest to the anxiety and the adrenaline I was using. The phrase your heart was in your throat became very real right then. My blood began to pulse so strongly in my throat that I could hear it. Like when you are trying to fall asleep and you hear the blood swishing through your ear and echoing against your pillow and back into your eardrum. Well, I could hear the blood and for a few breaths I could feel my windpipe constricted by the extra blood flowing through my neck. As it came to my attention and sucked the air in extra hard, it was gone. Just like that my heart beat normally and I could breath with ease. That continued until I finished my homework and all through today. It might be something that I want to get checked out, but that tangible change with the anxiety of school, is also a reminder to take a deep breath.
I love this, Emmy. I think everyone can really relate to being incredibly stressed out during school, especially at the beginning. I also totally agree with the main difference between school and summer is not having homework. I love the description you use to describe what you were feeling physically as you were doing homework. I also really like how you draw the connection between the scariness and uncomfortableness of the feeling and the fact that it is a huge reminder to slow down. I think you could elaborate on that aspect of passage; you spent many sentences describing it literally and I want to know what it means in the context of your life. I think that would make the whole passage a lot more relatable. Really nice job, I really liked reading this.
I love this, Emmy. I think everyone can really relate to being incredibly stressed out during school, especially at the beginning. I also totally agree with the main difference between school and summer is not having homework. I love the description you use to describe what you were feeling physically as you were doing homework. I also really like how you draw the connection between the scariness and uncomfortableness of the feeling and the fact that it is a huge reminder to slow down. I think you could elaborate on that aspect of passage; you spent many sentences describing it literally and I want to know what it means in the context of your life. I think that would make the whole passage a lot more relatable. Really nice job, I really liked reading this.
I'm terrified. I had surgery two weeks ago, and today something popped. I was in the car, sipping the last of my soda, when all of a sudden, I felt a tug, like something was pulling inward toward the center of my stomach, and then it released,blowing back outward. On the right, where I had my surgery, something went pop! It felt like the sound a soap bubble makes when it bursts in the air: just a soft, quiet sound to let you know that it is vanishing before your eyes. I know that it is probably nothing, but still, in the moment, I was scared. My mom was on the phone with my grandparents, and I knew I couldn't interrupt. I just sat, frozen-shallow-breathing-push-down-the-fear, as the garbled mixture of cell phone on speaker and road noise filtered by. "Okay, dear, we're here now; I have to go," Mom says brightly, even though I can tell by her rigid posture that she's anything but chipper. "Mom, something snapped inside me," I say, my tone a little too impatient. "Don't you start now. Get out." And that is the last of it until we near home, when I can't push down the fear anymore. But she's still mad. I'm still so scared. What if it is something? What if something's really wrong? I just don't know. But I have homework to do, and hopefully I'll be distracted enough by that to calm down.
The forest sat at the edge of darkness, lighted like the interior of a borg cube. I sat next to the screen door of my porch and waited. As the streams of photons trickled away into nothingness, the night sprang into life. A stream of soft trilling from the wavy grasses meant that the Allard’s had begun the night. The second singer was a Carolina ground cricket, its loud droning buzz surprisingly loud, but surprisingly unnoticeable. The two different songs carried on, each indifferent to the other. Slowly, steadily, another voice crept into the serenade. At first, I didn’t notice it, but the realization finally hit me. This was a trill like the others, but a more ethereal sound, reverberating across the night. It had finally become late enough for the narrow-winged tree crickets to croon into the darkness. I imagined the singers out there, in their private little world, and felt privileged to be able to visit this world, if only for a short time.
Every fall semester, without fail, field hockey completely takes over my life. Every season I try to not let it get to me as much as it does, but I care. Maybe a little bit too much. It has come to the point where my coach expects too much from me, and I can't deliver. That fact alone rips me apart. I try my hardest to please her, but it lately it has been taking too much of my energy. Today, we played NYA for our third game of the season. It was the classic afternoon for a field hockey game. Cool, crisp, not sunny enough to blind you, but just sunny enough to keep you warm when that fall breeze comes blowing through. This game was an especially important one, and we were expected to win. We step onto the field and take our positions. The field is full of tension and fear. The game went by in a second, and before we even knew it, we had lost 8-0.
There has now been major construction taking place in my town for nearly half a year. It's focal point is the entrance ramp to the highway and for months now it has made getting onto the highway an ordeal. Sometimes I am not bothered by having to wait at all the makeshift stop signs and sit in the heavy, congested traffic. This morning was not one of those times. Maybe it was because I had already been caught behind a car going 10 miles under the speed limit (one of my biggest pet peeves), or maybe it was because I was anxious not to be late to class on the second day of school, or maybe it was just because it was 7:30 AM and I was tired. I sat in my cold car (it's 15 years old and the heat takes a while to kick in) listening to commercials on the radio, my foot tapping impatiently on the break. By the time the traffic started moving I had convinced myself I had been trapped in a completely unjust situation and victimized by the construction workers. It was then that I passed one of these so-called sadistic workers, bundled in a heavy coat, snow pants and neck warmer with his bright orange vest glittering in the morning sun and holding a stop sign in his gloved hand. As I passed he shuffled side to side in a feeble attempt to warm up as he stared off into the distance with empty eyes. I navigated the rest of the construction site with a feeling of guilt mixed with thankfulness.
This is great, Julianna. You do a really great job explaining how you felt and especially your reasons for feeling as you did. Construction, slow drivers, wanting to get to school on time, these are issues to which everyone can relate. At the same time it reads true to your specific experience, in particular when you talk about your car. I could really picture the morning and the worker through your description; I especially liked the image of "...his bright orange vest glittering in the morning sun...." My only suggestion is to write another sentence or two about your feelings of guilt and thankfulness--I understand exactly what you mean, but I think it could be fleshed out a bit more. Also (though of course this is just a rough draft so this isn't important), the "it's" at the start of the second sentence shouldn't have an apostrophe. But these are very minor points. You did a great job--your story is clearly told and easy to relate to and to visualize.
This year our pumpkins were ripe in early August. Their plump, basketball-sized bodies looked odd without the usual crunch of fallen leaves at my feet, instead, I walked bare-foot through the freshly cut, late-summer grass with my toes leaving imprints on a thin layer of mud. When I knock on the tough exterior, the hollow sound tells me they are done growing for the year and I cut the already drying stem. Today, almost a month and a half later, I begin to see the trail of orange pumpkins on doorsteps like a welcome mat for autumn. The leaves have not begun to fall but some trees have sparked the travel of fiery colors. Our pumpkins are stacked in wheelbarrows and waiting for the frosty morning air to be warmed by the sun. We cross our fingers they make it until late October.
Adapting to the morning commute is one of the biggest challenges I face with the welcoming of the school year. I peel my eyes open as they shudder against the bright light that my mom turns on in the morning. Without fail, I fall back to sleep for another thirty minutes before emerging in a rush from my warm cocoon as I realize that I, once again, have overslept. After I hastily complete my morning routine and open the front door it feels like I am opening the refrigerator door, which is when I remember that I forgot my lunch and I run back inside and grab it. I once again enter the cold outdoors and the car engine breaks through the early morning silence that has not yet lifted. With my trusty little passenger by my side we embark on the same journey we have taken every day for five years now. The cycle as only just begun.
ReplyDeleteTwo and a half hours ago, exhausted from the school day, I walked into the theater, mumbling goodbye over my shoulder to the people I had kind-of-not-really been talking to. I wanted to be part of the cast of The Crucible, even though I doubted that I had any acting ability. Unobserved, I slipped into the theater. People were onstage, backstage, sitting around. The space had never seemed so insurmountably huge, the lighting never so harsh. I found someone to sit with, and dutifully did everything that I was told to do in the way of warm-up exercises. I proceeded to read through various scenes in the script. Suddenly, it was 5:30. Walking out of the cozy little theater, the light seemed warmer. Was it only that the curtains were closed and the lights turned on, or was it possible that I had actually had a great time?
ReplyDeleteMy sister comes barging into my room. "I'm looking for something." She says as she swoops around the room, her arms outstretched ready to grab the thing that's on her mind. "Well, are you going to tell me what it is? You can't just come in and not tell me what it is your looking for." She's interrupted me in between my work and I've yelled at her. She stops swooping. She closes the door on her way out, grumbling something I can't make out. But, it doesn't matter. As soon as the door shuts, a rush of guilt fills me. People always tell me that I'm a great sister, my sister tells me herself. But, I don't feel that great. I get irrationally angry. I yell. I argue stupid arguments. I close my door and I lock it. All these things are my worst actions as a sister and, in this moment, the sound of the door banging shut still rings in my ear. I might be a good sister sometimes but, to be a good sister, you have to be "on" all the time. I am not. When I am in a bad mood, she knows it and, sometimes I even take it out on her. I feel horrible but, she forgives me anyways, which is somehow, always the worst part. No matter what I do, no matter how bad I am, she'll always forgive me. Because she's Siham. And has too big of a heart.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways my summer was very relaxing, but I think that was mostly due to the fact that I did not have any homework. Waynflete is an excellent school but the intensity of the work creates an tangible anxiety. Last night, as I sat on the couch in the little room we call the study, I started to feel it. I was pouring myself into the questions about the history reading, and as the clock ticked past 9:30, it began. My heart began to protest to the anxiety and the adrenaline I was using. The phrase your heart was in your throat became very real right then. My blood began to pulse so strongly in my throat that I could hear it. Like when you are trying to fall asleep and you hear the blood swishing through your ear and echoing against your pillow and back into your eardrum. Well, I could hear the blood and for a few breaths I could feel my windpipe constricted by the extra blood flowing through my neck. As it came to my attention and sucked the air in extra hard, it was gone. Just like that my heart beat normally and I could breath with ease. That continued until I finished my homework and all through today. It might be something that I want to get checked out, but that tangible change with the anxiety of school, is also a reminder to take a deep breath.
ReplyDeleteI love this, Emmy. I think everyone can really relate to being incredibly stressed out during school, especially at the beginning. I also totally agree with the main difference between school and summer is not having homework. I love the description you use to describe what you were feeling physically as you were doing homework. I also really like how you draw the connection between the scariness and uncomfortableness of the feeling and the fact that it is a huge reminder to slow down. I think you could elaborate on that aspect of passage; you spent many sentences describing it literally and I want to know what it means in the context of your life. I think that would make the whole passage a lot more relatable. Really nice job, I really liked reading this.
DeleteI love this, Emmy. I think everyone can really relate to being incredibly stressed out during school, especially at the beginning. I also totally agree with the main difference between school and summer is not having homework. I love the description you use to describe what you were feeling physically as you were doing homework. I also really like how you draw the connection between the scariness and uncomfortableness of the feeling and the fact that it is a huge reminder to slow down. I think you could elaborate on that aspect of passage; you spent many sentences describing it literally and I want to know what it means in the context of your life. I think that would make the whole passage a lot more relatable. Really nice job, I really liked reading this.
DeleteI'm terrified. I had surgery two weeks ago, and today something popped. I was in the car, sipping the last of my soda, when all of a sudden, I felt a tug, like something was pulling inward toward the center of my stomach, and then it released,blowing back outward. On the right, where I had my surgery, something went pop! It felt like the sound a soap bubble makes when it bursts in the air: just a soft, quiet sound to let you know that it is vanishing before your eyes. I know that it is probably nothing, but still, in the moment, I was scared. My mom was on the phone with my grandparents, and I knew I couldn't interrupt. I just sat, frozen-shallow-breathing-push-down-the-fear, as the garbled mixture of cell phone on speaker and road noise filtered by. "Okay, dear, we're here now; I have to go," Mom says brightly, even though I can tell by her rigid posture that she's anything but chipper. "Mom, something snapped inside me," I say, my tone a little too impatient. "Don't you start now. Get out." And that is the last of it until we near home, when I can't push down the fear anymore. But she's still mad.
ReplyDeleteI'm still so scared. What if it is something? What if something's really wrong? I just don't know. But I have homework to do, and hopefully I'll be distracted enough by that to calm down.
The forest sat at the edge of darkness, lighted like the interior of a borg cube. I sat next to the screen door of my porch and waited. As the streams of photons trickled away into nothingness, the night sprang into life. A stream of soft trilling from the wavy grasses meant that the Allard’s had begun the night. The second singer was a Carolina ground cricket, its loud droning buzz surprisingly loud, but surprisingly unnoticeable. The two different songs carried on, each indifferent to the other. Slowly, steadily, another voice crept into the serenade. At first, I didn’t notice it, but the realization finally hit me. This was a trill like the others, but a more ethereal sound, reverberating across the night. It had finally become late enough for the narrow-winged tree crickets to croon into the darkness. I imagined the singers out there, in their private little world, and felt privileged to be able to visit this world, if only for a short time.
ReplyDeleteEvery fall semester, without fail, field hockey completely takes over my life. Every season I try to not let it get to me as much as it does, but I care. Maybe a little bit too much. It has come to the point where my coach expects too much from me, and I can't deliver. That fact alone rips me apart. I try my hardest to please her, but it lately it has been taking too much of my energy. Today, we played NYA for our third game of the season. It was the classic afternoon for a field hockey game. Cool, crisp, not sunny enough to blind you, but just sunny enough to keep you warm when that fall breeze comes blowing through. This game was an especially important one, and we were expected to win. We step onto the field and take our positions. The field is full of tension and fear. The game went by in a second, and before we even knew it, we had lost 8-0.
ReplyDeleteThere has now been major construction taking place in my town for nearly half a year. It's focal point is the entrance ramp to the highway and for months now it has made getting onto the highway an ordeal. Sometimes I am not bothered by having to wait at all the makeshift stop signs and sit in the heavy, congested traffic. This morning was not one of those times. Maybe it was because I had already been caught behind a car going 10 miles under the speed limit (one of my biggest pet peeves), or maybe it was because I was anxious not to be late to class on the second day of school, or maybe it was just because it was 7:30 AM and I was tired. I sat in my cold car (it's 15 years old and the heat takes a while to kick in) listening to commercials on the radio, my foot tapping impatiently on the break. By the time the traffic started moving I had convinced myself I had been trapped in a completely unjust situation and victimized by the construction workers. It was then that I passed one of these so-called sadistic workers, bundled in a heavy coat, snow pants and neck warmer with his bright orange vest glittering in the morning sun and holding a stop sign in his gloved hand. As I passed he shuffled side to side in a feeble attempt to warm up as he stared off into the distance with empty eyes. I navigated the rest of the construction site with a feeling of guilt mixed with thankfulness.
ReplyDeleteThis is great, Julianna. You do a really great job explaining how you felt and especially your reasons for feeling as you did. Construction, slow drivers, wanting to get to school on time, these are issues to which everyone can relate. At the same time it reads true to your specific experience, in particular when you talk about your car. I could really picture the morning and the worker through your description; I especially liked the image of "...his bright orange vest glittering in the morning sun...." My only suggestion is to write another sentence or two about your feelings of guilt and thankfulness--I understand exactly what you mean, but I think it could be fleshed out a bit more. Also (though of course this is just a rough draft so this isn't important), the "it's" at the start of the second sentence shouldn't have an apostrophe. But these are very minor points. You did a great job--your story is clearly told and easy to relate to and to visualize.
DeleteThis year our pumpkins were ripe in early August. Their plump, basketball-sized bodies looked odd without the usual crunch of fallen leaves at my feet, instead, I walked bare-foot through the freshly cut, late-summer grass with my toes leaving imprints on a thin layer of mud. When I knock on the tough exterior, the hollow sound tells me they are done growing for the year and I cut the already drying stem. Today, almost a month and a half later, I begin to see the trail of orange pumpkins on doorsteps like a welcome mat for autumn. The leaves have not begun to fall but some trees have sparked the travel of fiery colors. Our pumpkins are stacked in wheelbarrows and waiting for the frosty morning air to be warmed by the sun. We cross our fingers they make it until late October.
ReplyDelete