A Dream..?

Authors Note: Currently in class, we are doing speeches. So I decided to do a collaborative piece with Kavitha, and this is called a "Sentence Tag Story". That is when each of us switches off writing the sentences, and the story can be completely random, just like ours is. Enjoy, and I hope you laugh - a lot!

My head went bazingaa! That was what happened to me when some random stranger threw a loaf of bread at me. I turned around to them and said, “Do you believe in unicorns?” turns out they didn’t. And it just so happens that there was an ice cream truck coming down the road, so I got a vanilla cone and smashed it against my forehead. HA! So there are unicorns in the world; Some people might think this is weird, but if you knew me, it is perfectly normal. I could tell by the strangers face that he thought it was the strangest thing, so I took out my handy dandy travel size loaf of bread and hit him in the face. Our fight went on for hours, but that’s not even the craziest part; I actually entered the world of Narnia, don’t ask me how, I just did! I roamed the vast forest around the lamp post, and soon came to find a strange woman named the “White Witch”. She gave me this wonderful food called Turkish Delight, and so I climbed onto her coach and we went off. During the ride, she tried to take my stuffed doll Dora, so I said to her “Swiper no swiping!!” I tried to get out, knowing that anyone who looked this horrid is bound to be trouble, thanks to those beavers with the british accents, I did. The beavers took me to the great lion Aslan, and I asked him if he could get rid of the Dora swiping demon for good! He was very wise, and told me that she is too powerful for anybody to kill her, besides the chosen one; which just happened to be...not me. It turned out to be Peter, some random guy that walked into a wardrobe or something. He looked really familiar, kind of like the kid who hit me in the head with the bread. When Peter walked into the room, he said “Greetings Earthlings, I am the chosen one!” To be honest, I didn’t even like the kid. He seemed to be too full of himself. So, who cares if he’s the chosen one, I am the chosen..er one. I didn’t really see what I was doing here, so I said to them “So.... Can I leave?” Nobody was paying attention to me, so I decided to go back to the lamp post. I was wondering how I was going to get back home, when all of a sudden this creepy centaur thing came up to me and started attacking me. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “AHHHHHHHH! Somebody help me!” I kept yelling, when I found myself waking up. So I guess it was all just a dream... Or so I thought. As i sat back up, I looked around, I was in the middle of the street with bread in my hair and ice cream on my forehead. And to this day, I don’t know... Was it real? Or... A Dream?

And that kids, is the story of Pippy SirSqueeALot and the Dora Swiping Demon, and we’ll see you next week for another story on the Adventures of Piipy SirSqeeALot, good night!

A Letter to Myself

Author's Note: So I was struggling to decide what to write for my next conference. Then I looked at some writing prompts at creativewritingprompts.com and did Writing Prompt #21, which states "Write a letter to the 10-year-old child you had been." When I was 10 I was in 5th grade, and that was my last year in Michigan. It was really fun and interesting writing this piece, so I hope you like it!

Dear 10-year-old Becca,

Right now you are ten years old. You are in 5th grade and have Mrs. Scott as a teacher. I’m assuming you really love your life right now. Sam is now your best friend, and you’re really close to Kaley, Breanna, and Rachel. And trust me. Sam is your best bet as a friend. She will never abandon you, and you will never get in any fights. She will never tell anyone any of your secrets, and she will always be there for you. Kaley, Breanna, and Rachel are okay friends, but you really don’t need them. You will meet better people in the future. Oh, and you just got your ear’s pierced this summer! Well, for a second time. Remember when your left earlobe got all red in school last year? And then you went home and took the earring out and blood was spurting everywhere? Ouch. That must’ve hurt real bad. But I’m glad you decided just to let them close up and get them pierced yet again. But this letter is mainly to tell you that your dad will get a job offer at MetalTEK in Wisconsin. Him and your mom will go house hunting for a couple of days, and then come back and tell you that they are thinking about moving to Wisconsin. At first you will be really excited, and tell everyone in your class. But then you start to get scared all the time. You won’t want to do anything at school, because you feel like it’s pointless because you might be moving to a different school anyways. That Sam won’t be your best friend anymore, and that you will be a complete loser at your new school. And don’t freak out the day that your parents decide that it would be the best thing for your family to move to Wisconsin. The pay at MetalTEK will be more, the schools are much better, and there will be more opportunities in life. The moment you find out you’re moving, you will get your mom’s phone and go to your room. You’ll immediately dial Sam’s mom’s phone number and you’ll ask if you can speak to Sam. You’ll tell her that you’re moving and you’ll both start balling your eyes out. You’ll ask if you can go over to her house, and you walk over there. Then you both cry together. Just cry. Please don’t try to stop it. Just hug each other, and cry, and let everything out. Just let everything out that you’ve been holding inside you for so long. Just cry with your best friend and spend every waking moment with her until Friday, August 21, 2010 at 4:30 PM. But please, please, please do not let the fact that you’re moving make you sad or depressed. Just think of the good things. At your new school, you can start over. You can try and not be that shy girl that you’ve always been. Meet new people, and make new best friends.Focus on getting good grades and meeting new people. But I just wanted to warn you about the Wisconsin thing. And just have fun being a normal 10 year old girl, and worry about things that any other 10 year old would worry about.

Love,

The Future You.

The Journey of Life

Authors Note: This is a Literary Analysis on "The Bean Trees." I focused on trying to show my understanding of the book. Enjoy! This essay is also being used for my District Writing Assessment.

“It was one of the many times in Turtle’s and my life together that I was to have no notion of what to do.”(pg.281) Taylor Greer, a young woman from Pittman County, Kentucky doesn’t know what she wants with her life. So she heads west in her battered, ragged car, hoping to start over with a blank slate. But during a series of unexpected events she somehow ends up with a three-year-old American-Indian girl named Turtle. The Bean Trees, written by Barbara Kingsolver, has an admirable story-line because of its pronounced sense of love, friendship, and abandonment.

Love is the greatest source of healing – it heals hearts. When Taylor meets Turtle for the first time, she doesn’t know what she should do. She doesn’t know how to be a mother, and she doesn’t even have a home to live in. Yet she decides that she should not care about their possessions, or how much money they have – but to just love Turtle with all her heart. Taylor discovers bruises all over Turtle’s body and finds out that she must have been through some sort of traumatic experience. Also that Turtle had most likely never been loved before, and had never had a mother that truly cared for her. Taylor and Turtle’s bond is caused by love – and that bond is what keeps them together throughout the entire novel.

Although love may have a great effect on The Bean Trees story-line, friendship is also another main factor in this novel. When Taylor and Turtle arrive in Tucson, Arizona they decide to stay there permanently. One of the many people that they meet on their journey is Mattie. Mattie runs the “Jesus Is Lord Used Tires” shop, and she gives Taylor a job there, as well as a place to stay. But eventually Taylor is going to have to get her own place – or share an apartment with someone else. She eventually finds an apartment and lives there with a woman named Lou Ann Ruiz and her son Dwayne Ray. Lou Ann and Taylor become the best of friends, and share the experiences of mother hood with one another. They become independent, strong women and mothers, who know how to effectively run a household. They depend on each other for life advice, and they both play a huge role in each other’s lives.

Despite the fact that friendship plays an extensive aspect in this novel, abandonment has to be what brought all these characters together in the first place. While Taylor is working at the tire shop, Mattie introduces her to Estevan and Esperanza - a young married couple who came to the United States illegally from Guatemala. But they could be arrested or killed in America since they had come illegally -- they were not safe in Tucson, Arizona. They had to abandon their country because it was too dangerous. Their daughter Ismene had been kidnapped and adopted into another family. Taylor did not want to have Turtle taken away from her either. Social services was going to come and take Turtle away from her because she wasn’t her legal guardian. And the only way to keep Turtle was to get her birth parents to sign her over to Taylor Greer. The only problem is that Taylor has no idea where any of Turtle’s relatives could be. So Taylor takes Estevan, Esperanza, and Turtle to Oklahoma to keep them safe and to somehow find a way to adopt Turtle. This expedition linked them all together because of their own reasons of abandonment -- and they just wanted to be safe with their loved ones.

A commendable novel that contains a great sense of love, friendship, and abandonment is The Bean Trees, written by Barbara Kingsolver. This book is extremely passionate about being loyal to your family and friends, while being loyal to yourself. Never forget to love people with all your heart. Because one day, you might need all the love you can get.

Only the Heart Matters

Author's Note: This is a quote interpretation that I decided to right. I wanted to do something that I had never done before, so I choose this quote from John Elroy Sanford. Enjoy!

“Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.”  ~ John Elroy Sanford

Beauty can mean two things. One is about your looks. People may say you’re, “pretty”, or “beautiful”. Another meaning of beauty is beauty within your heart. Being beautiful can mean having a beautiful personality. Caring about someone, and loving people for who they are, not just what they look like on the outside. Imagine if we were to have no skin, and no looks. Just looking at someone and being able to see straight into their heart; not having to judge them on their looks before actually getting to know the person. “Beauty may be skin deep,” means that not everyone will be able to tell that you are a real, caring person, because the human eye can only see the skin.

In this quote, I think that the meaning of ugly is based off of personality, and how you act. Ugly can mean rude or violent. “Ugly goes clear to the bone”, means that your entire personality is consumed with selfishness, and only caring about yourself.

Overall, I think that this quote means that not everyone can see the beauty within, only the looks that they are capable of seeing. But anyone can tell if you are an ugly person, and have an ugly heart, because there is no way of escaping the eyes and hearts of the people around you.

Nature's Beauty

Author’s Note: In this creative piece, I wrote about nature. I focused on creating a scene with lots of details.

Nature. It is a place where all creatures can stop and rest. We go there to think. To get things off of our minds, and get a breath of fresh air. You can go there just to take in all the beauty. Deer prancing through the trees, birds chirping in their nests, and squirrels finding acorns to store for the winter. The leaves slowly falling from their branches in autumn, gradually turning into winter. The wind glides through the trees branches, causing a slight rustle of movement. In the wintertime, the ground looks like it is covered with a bright white blanket. The beauty of nature is mesmerizing; a unique place only found on Earth.

Concert Review

Author's Note: Last week, I was in a band concert. Ms. Mitchell always has us do Concert Evaluations, but this time she decided to have us do an essay and pretend that we came to the concert instead of playing in the concert. Here is my critique of the 7th and 8th grade band concerts in essay format!

On March 6, 2013 at the Pewaukee High School Auditorium, the Asa Clark Middle School 7^th and 8^th grade band performed a concert.  I attended this concert at 6:30 PM and was prepared for a variety of song selection and musical talent. After the concert, I was fairly impressed. The Asa Clark Middle School 7^th and 8^th grade band performances were extremely intricate with a variety of song selection.

First, the 7^th grade band performed. Each song that they played had a different tempo and time signature, which made a lot of different variety. Within a few of the songs, there were different melody’s which also made more variety within the pieces. I was impressed that the band blended their sound very nicely. But, I did not notice a lot of dynamic contrast. I think if there were more dynamics it would have made the music more meaningful. The blend and balance was phenomenal. The only parts that really stood out to me were the articulations and dynamics. The articulations could have been more defined to make the music more clean.

After the 7^th grade band was finished performing, the 8^th grade band took the stage. When they started performing, you could hear the assortment of instruments as well as the different tempos within each piece. I was extremely impressed by the alto saxophones. They were marvelous at making the entire band blend together; they were like final string tying the band together. Just like the 7^th grade band, I did not notice a lot of dynamics. Throughout the entire performance they had the same volume. The upper woodwinds exceeded the rest of the band’s volume, and they were too overpowering; there should have been more low brass. The articulations were much better than the 7^th grade band’s; it made the music sound very polished.

A band that has an assortment of song selection and has excellent performing skills is the Asa Clark Middle School 7^th and 8^th Grade Band. Overall, I was extremely impressed. The young adults in the 7^th and 8^th grade band are very professional for their age, and exceeded my expectations. They should expect extraordinary musical futures.

Questions and Thoughts

Authors Note: Lately I have been reading the Twilight Saga, and I decided to write a letter to the author, Stephenie Meyer. This is my creative piece!

Dear Stephenie Meyer,

I’ve recently been reading the Twilight Saga, and I love it. I am literally obsessed with it. All I think about is vampires and werewolves. Many people ask me - Team Edward or Team Jacob? And I’m both ways. When I watched the movies I was definitely Team Jacob. But when I started reading the books I was leaning towards Team Edward. I didn’t realize that Edward cared so much about Bella, and you describe his love for her really well. I just finished Eclipse, and I am both teams. Edward loves Bella so much, but Jacob just won’t give up on her.  But as I’ve been reading these books, many questions have formed in my mind. My first question is, how are vampires able to smell blood? For example, in Twilight, when Edward and Bella have Biology together, Edward needs a lot of self-control because her blood smells so good. But if Edward is technically dead, how are his senses able to work? Most of my questions won’t be able to be answered, but it just gets my imagination running on full speed. Another one of my questions is how exactly is a human turned into a vampire? For example, when other vampires feed on humans, how do those humans not turn into vampires? Is it because all of their blood is sucked out of them? I think that to turn someone into a vampire, you only bite them, not drink their blood. An additional question is, how does the vampire venom get into a human’s body if all they do is bite them? Does the venom come out of the vampires teeth? Another one of my questions is, when a vampire gets killed, why do you have to tear them to shreds and burn the pieces? That sums up my questions about the Saga. But I do have a lot of comments on the books. I really love how you they put themselves back together if their pieces aren’t burned? Those are all of my main have the two different creatures fighting over Bella, and how the description makes a perfect picture in my head. Although sometimes I feel terrible for Jacob. Sometimes I wish that Jacob would imprint on Bella, so that she wouldn’t have a choice but to fall in love with Jacob. I have seen all the movies so I know that Jacob imprints on Renesmee, and I know that Bella is furious with Jacob. But I’m happy for Jacob because he gets to be around a part of Bella, and be apart of her family. I have a lot of favorite parts in the books. But I have to say my favorite part is in and they get to talk about Bella. If only they weren’t always meant to be enemies. Sometimes it Eclipse, during the tent scene. I love how Jacob and Edward get to be normal around each other, makes me so angry, that Bella, Edward, and Jacob could all just be friends, while Bella and Edward are married. Why can’t Jacob just accept the fact that Bella will never be able to love him the way that she loves Edward? And how can Bella be in love with two people at the same time? If she knows that she isn’t able to live without Edward, she should just consider Jacob as a friend. I have seen all of the movies, and they are amazing, but the books are so much better. The books describe the events in so much more detail, and they suck you into their world. I hope you can answer some of my questions!

Becca Chadwick