English Blog

My grandmother recently had a surgery to have her thyroid removed. She did not want to have the surgery in the first place but it was necessary. The thyroid condition she had made her moody and very irritable; she was just not herself. After the surgery, the doctors told her it would be a while before she felt better. She, however, expected results right away and therefore began to think that the surgery did not work. She was upset about everything and never wanted to leave her house to do anything. For example, every weekend my sister, my friends and I have a tennis lesson. I always invite my grandparents to come and watch to give them something to do. My grandpa always accepts excitedly but my granny says she is too weak to go. Happily, this all changed last weekend when I called to invite them to come and watch me play tennis. My grandmother picked up the phone and I greeted her and asked if she would like to attend my tennis lesson. She said that sounded wonderful, which was a phrase I had not heard her say in a very long time. She went to ask my grandfather if he would come and he said he would love to. I was so happy to see that my grandmother was finally well enough to come and watch me play tennis. My dad and I went to pick them up before we headed to the tennis court. When we got there, we all walked up the stairs to the court and I began my lesson. My grandmother seemed to really enjoy it and I was very glad. In fact, it was the first time she had ever seen me play tennis!

        Sleepily, I woke up.  It was Sunday morning after my older sister’s wild and rambunctious sleepover party with her friends.  Slowly and unsurely, my feet found their way down the soft, plush stairs.  As I walked into the kitchen, I found my mother setting up breakfast for my sister and her hungry friends.  She asked me if I had heard about the large spreading fire in Malibu.  She told me it was being moved by the fast-blowing Santa Ana winds that were blowing up to sixty miles an hour.  I was so shocked to hear there was a fire so close to our home.  Immediately filled with fear, I lunged my small fragile body into that of my strong, loving mother.  I was so scared. My mother reassured me the fire was not yet close to our home but might be coming closer in the next few days.  Unfortunately, my mother was right.

By Sunday evening my family and I had begun to pack up our belongings and were getting ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, we did not have to leave our wonderful home in which I was so secure.  On Monday, my father got out a fire hose and hooked it up to a machine that would take water out of our pool and transfer it to the fire hose so that we could spray the roof of our house with water.  He had also told my sister and me earlier that morning that we should pack up what was important to us because the area known as Sunset Mesa was under a voluntary evacuation order and we would most likely be under one soon.  I could not think of what to take.  I wanted to just pick up my house and move it away from the fire.  I gathered the items that were most important to me and stacked them on the spare twin bed next to the one that I slept in.  Those items are still sitting there to this very moment, ready to be picked up and packed into the car in case of mandatory evacuation. I am very worried and cannot describe the fear I am feeling.  I can only hope my family and I do not have to evacuate our beloved home, leaving it and its contents behind.  

            Holden Caulfield, a sixteen-year-old boy, has matured a lot throughout his experience that he narrates in the novel.  As the novel begins, he expresses his feelings about being kicked out of his school, Pencey Prep. The novel ends with Holden describing Phoebe on the carousel as he talks to his therapist.  The main way Holden matured was by realizing he needs to become an adult and take the world as it is.  For example, near the end of the novel Holden decides he is going to go West and be a deaf mute. However, later on he tells Phoebe that he is going to come home with her and not go West.  In this instance, Holden is realizing that he must be an adult and face his problems, starting with seeing his parents and telling them about Pencey Prep.  Another point in the novel at which one can see that Holden has matured greatly is when he is watching Phoebe ride the carousel.  When Holden is watching phoebe he is not riding the carousel with her nor is he distancing himself from the other adults watching their children; Holden goes to stand with the other adults watching their children.  This reveals that Holden is ready to try becoming more of an adult and taking on more responsibility.  In addition, while watching Phoebe, Holden makes the analogy of the “gold ring.”   Holden is learning to let go of Phoebe by letting her try to do something at which she might fail.   Lastly, at the very end of the novel Holden says: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything.  If you do, you start missing everybody.”  This exaggerates the fact that Holden is coming to terms with what he has done and is re-thinking all of his decisions. While Holden is not yet able to look to his future he has come to terms with his past and is no longer worrying about it because he has realizes he can do nothing about it. In conclusion, Holden has matured greatly throughout all of his experiences, and has learned to become a man. 

P.S. I think we were to post this paragraph and bring a hard copy into class.  If not I will count this as one of my posts for this week!

        The clock began ticking, tick tock, tick tock. One lonely, solitary bead of sweat slipping down my forehead as my hand holding the black pen rushes to finish my in-class essay. My heart beat racing, faster, then faster. All of a sudden, it stops.  I hear nothing.  I see nothing. Gradually I begin to hear the ticking of the clock again. Other pens and in the room are scratching on the paper loudly.  Then I look up. I see a face; it is the face of a teacher, though I can’t make it out at that moment. The lips are moving but no words are coming out.  The eyes, filled with horror and a mouth of perfect white teeth is wide open in shock, right in front of my face.  Slowly opening my eyes, I realize that I am in a small, crowded classroom with many posters covering the opaque white walls. As I realize that I was supposed to be taking a test that period, I was wondering what had happened.  After taking a moment to catch my breath, I found out from my friend Michelle what had happened. “Everyone was taking the test when you passed out. We all got so worried about you”, she said. Just then, I remembered that I had not had breakfast that morning and the test was second period.  I made a promise to my friends and myself to always eat breakfast every morning, especially if I was scheduled to have a test.

         One summer day my little sister, Jenna, showed just how trusting she could be. I was sitting on our porch in the boiling summer heat wearing faded jean shorts and a tie-dye t-shirt, avoiding my chores. All of a sudden, Jenna came up and sat on one of our front steps. She was wearing her white dress with blue flowers on it that my mother had bought for her. She looked like an angle with her pure golden locks, which became slightly curly where her hair rested in the middle of her back. I was so jealous of her hair; it was so much prettier than mine was. My hair was short, thin and always frizzy, especially in the sweltering summer heat. Jenna was sitting on the step just below mine. She began humming. She was so good at humming. There were so many things Jenna could do that many people could not. All of a sudden, a light bulb switched on in my brain.

Thinking about how much I did not want to do my morning chores and how Jenna believed anything she heard, I decided to play a little trick. “If you do my chores this morning something incredible will happen to you this afternoon.” Gradually, a big smile appeared on Jenna’s face. She was so excited and eager to do it I almost felt bad I had said it in the first place. Before anything, more was said she was up off the steps the ribbon of her blue and white dress flying behind her as she ran inside. She went to do the dirty breakfast dishes, feed our small, gray, wired haired terrier, and take him for a walk. She was moving so fast that it was impossible to talk to her. It was hard to believe that she was so easily fooled.

After she was done with all of my chores, she came to the steps and said, “nothing has happened to me, when will something happen to me.” I told her she had to wait for a good thing to come along and soon it would. A feeling of horror and sadness came upon me in an instant. My stomach began twisting in knots, realizing the pain I had caused my little sister to endure. Jenna sat down on the steps and began to cry. That small gesture of helplessness made me feel even worse. Walking over to her saying, “Sorry, I lied”, did not seem to make anything better. “Nothing amazing is going to happen to you.” The look of desperation on her face showed me just how much I had hurt her. She ran inside once again, but his time it was not to do chores, it was to cry, knowing she had been fooled yet again by another prank. Was it really my fault she was so naive. Maybe it was. Either way, feeling awful, I walked slowly up our front steps and went inside.

            Recently, I attended a party for my ninety-nine year old great aunt on my father’s side of the family. Two family friends, my mother, father, sister, great aunt and I sat around a crowded table at the Pierpont Inn. The Pierpont Inn is located in Ventura, California, right near the ocean. My favorite thing about this small homey Inn is that if one is there with in a certain thirty-minute window there are the best pictures of the sun setting over the ocean I have ever seen in my life. We were all sitting around the table when the waitress came up and asked us what we would like to drink. After everyone had ordered their drinks, my dad ordered himself a martini on the rocks and then, being the joker he is, ordered one for my ninety-nine year old great aunt.  With a smile on her face, she responded in her low crackling voice, “That sounds nice.” We all laughed and knew that this would be her annual martini with my Dad that she had when we went to the Pierpont Inn for her birthday. It was at that point that I truly realized how lucky we were to have her around. She has lived for ninety-nine years on the planet we call home. She has been through everything: The depression the wars, the good times and the bad. She has so much life experience and I only hope that one day I will live to be ninety-nine years old and still be drinking an annual martini on the rocks. I look up to my Great Aunt Margaret. To me, the word I put in front of her name every time I say it: Great; is not a measure of age or generations it is a measure of character, personality and experience. I am praying that on June 6, 2008, she will still be alive.  On this day, my Great Aunt Margaret will be one hundred years old. Here is to the hope that we all make it to one hundred years old, all of our dreams fulfilled.

Today, at lunch was my first-ever Pie and Burger meal. It was amazing. When I came out of English class, the period after break, I could just smell the delicious onions enveloping the entire school in a thick cloud of flavor.  I stopped for a moment and sniffed the air; it smelled wonderful. Much to my dismay, I knew there was still one more period before I could get my pie and burger. I put down my English books and picked up my Health books. Then I sauntered down the locker hallway to the room with the plaque next to the door that read, “C222.” This room is the language lab, where my health class was, only for today. I opened the door and went inside. Finally, after many problems with the computers we all got started on our power point projects. Finding that my project was finished I began to think about the Pie and Burger meal, considered sacred by Marlborough girls, and what it would taste like. Before I knew it, my mouth was watering and the image of a big juicy burger floated into my head. I snapped back into reality and looked at the clock to see that it was eleven twenty five. I asked my Health teacher, Ms. Brown, if I could leave class early to get my first-ever Pie and Burger meal. Thankfully, she allowed me to leave. I ran out of the classroom, threw my books behind the carefully marked green lines and went to find the pie and burgers that I had heard are so good. I found it, along with a line for the delectable food already going up the stairs. I waited in line smelling all the flavors. Onions, burger patties, sauces, French fries and of course the pies!  The line moved quickly and as it passed the stations at which the food was prepared, I thought I was in heaven. The tantalizing aroma of a burger made me go weak at the knees. Then, I got my burger. To be precise I got a cheeseburger; a patty, lettuce, cheese and thousand-island sauce–delicious! I went and sat with a group of my friends and, at eleven forty-five, took that first sensational bite. What satisfaction!  I now understand why all my friends were so excited about pie and burgers coming to the school. It is indeed, a complete meal.

One Sunday morning long, long ago, when I was only three I went outside on a sunny, crisp October day.  I went looking for my Daddy because I knew that every Sunday morning he did one thing; he would slowly rake up all the multi-colored leaves that had fallen on our front lawn.  I opened the bland blue and white, wooden front door and there he was, almost as if he was waiting for me to come and jump into his open arms.  I ran to him as fast as my short, thin legs would take me.  When I reached his arms I felt as though I had crossed a barrier that had kept us apart for too long a night. With an ear-to-ear smile on his sweet fact, he asked me eagerly if I would like to help him rake up the many leaves.  I nodded my head swiftly and quickly hopped down from his arms. I picked up the large rake with an unpainted wooden handle and twelve rusty, green prongs on the bottom. This rake was, of course, much taller that I was so Daddy had to help me rake up what was left of the leaves. He stood behind me and held the top of the old rake while I held the base of it where the metal started and pulled my arms back then lifted the rake up and pulled back again. As Daddy and I raked, I realized the many colors of the leaves. There were some mud brown, some grass green, some fire orange, some crayon yellow with mud brown spots and some even strawberry red. After Daddy and I had raked up all the leaves on the front lawn into one big pile, I thought how much fun it; would be to jump in our big pile.  When Daddy had his back turned I did it; I jumped in. As soon as Daddy heard me giggling with glee, he knew what I had done. He turned around with a big smile on his face and then came to join me rolling in the leaves. We rolled and laughed together for what seemed like hours on our front lawn. One Sunday morning on a crisp, October day Daddy and I did something I will never forget; we rolled in leaves.