Stars

     I remember when I was six years old, our family lived in a poor village located in Jiang xi Province. At that time, we don’t have much entertainment, no iPads, laptops or video games. The only thing I like to do was waiting till the sky turned dark, then my grandma or my mom would tell stories to me. 

     Once in mid summer, we were sitting on the grass back in my granddad’s big old house which is the heritage from granddad’s father. That night, the stars were extremely bright. Grandma asked, “Aren’t they beautiful?”

     “Yes, they are like the most shiny thing I have ever seen, I hope one day I can be one of the them.” I spoke that with full of simplicity and imagination.

     “Do you want to hear the story of another side of stars?” Grandma asked.

     “Yes, I am curious about anything related to stars.” 

     “Actually, stars never shine. The reason why they can shine so brightly is that they reflect the light emitted from the Sun. Stars themselves are ugly, and also, they never give anything to others, but the Sun always gives the light to others. So, would you like to be a star which has to rely on others or the Sun which can illuminate others?” grandma said

     “I think, I want to be the Sun.” I changed my mind to continue to like the stars.

     Though this story I understood that was being a person leaning on or illuminating others. It always reminded me to be the Sun to help others, to give joy to others and to share positive energy with others. However, until the period of rebelling which every teenager will go through, including me, I have another understanding to this story. When I was in 9th grade and I did not like to study and my grades were terrible. My schoolmates, they were always whispering like “He is the stupidest guy in that class!”.

     I could not suffer even more than that. Therefore I skipped school and stayed at home without telling my parents. They were in the hospitals with my grandma who was still fighting with cancer. Finally, my mom got a phone call from my tutor saying that I haven’t been to school for three days. And I told them the decision which I didn’t want to go to school. 

     One day, they brought me to hospital to visit my grandma. My grandma was excited to see me. I saw her haggard face and body. Her face couldn’t be more white, her hair couldn’t be thinner, her lips couldn’t be more grey. I almost lost control and cried.

     She had already heard that I ddi not want to go to school. She asked me

     “Do you still remember the star story?”

     “Yes, I do. Being a illuminator instead of leaner, right?” I tried to not let myself cry. 

     She held my hands, but her hands were cold like ice, which shocked me.

     “Yes, but today this is the another side of this story. Stars are ugly, but they can reflect light to reveal their beautiful side to people. They are just like humans with merits and flaws” She said tremblingly.

     Three days later, my grandma has been one of the star in the sky, I returned back to school and decided to study hard and tried to be the shiniest star in the sky.

Riggs Anderson

American Lit.

Mrs. Hudak

1/13/15

Film Review

            Blow is a biographical story of George Jung’s life, a former drug smuggler who reportedly during the 1970s imported 85% of The United States cocaine and ultimately created the market for cocaine in the United States. It has made him one of the greatest success stories in the American drug market, working directly with Pablo Escobar for many years they created an industry for cocaine in America.

            The film starts out with young George growing up in Boston in a common blue collar community, his father a normal working man who owned his own pluming business but George’s father struggled with money and George learned from a young age that he never wanted to have the same problem as his father. By the age of 18 he had moved west with his best friend Tuna. California was a totally different word than what George was used to, everyone was smoking pot and hanging out on the beach. George meets a girl and life was pretty good for him except the fact that he doesn’t have a job until his friend Tuna says "You know how we were wondering how we were gonna get money being that we don't want to get jobs?" and that births the idea of selling pot. George and his new friends then start their new importing business and he was happy with his new fiancé, but George wasn’t making as much money as he wanted. George’s ambition for more money meant he had to import more dope, until he was caught with 660 lbs. of pot in Chicago and found out that his wife was dieing of cancer. After his wife’s death he served 2 years in prison, there he meets Diego his connection to cocaine in Columbia.   In Danbury Prison, “[he] went in with a bachelor's of marijuana and came out with a doctorate in cocaine.” and when George gets out he starts making some real money working directly with Pablo Escobar. George meets a new woman named Mirtha and falls in love with her, but George doesn’t fully see that she’s a real piece of work and at one point she gets him arrested. Although his relationship with Mirtha ended poorly, he got something good out of it and that was his daughter.

            Through-out Georges life his main focus is about being successful in his own image, but once his run is over he realizes what his father told him so long ago about the notion that ‘money wasn’t real’ happened to be very true.                          

Cem Caglayan
American Lit
February 2, 2015



                                                                   Narrative



             The biggest role model in my life is my older brother Emre. We are twelve years apart, which may seem like we are not that close. But i feel we are as close as brothers can possibly be. From my brother is where my love for baseball came from. Emre was a very talented baseball player who played division one baseball at Wofford. There was nothing more i loved to do more than to take the four hour car ride up to Wofford and watch him play. This though one day would end, sadly it came to quick.

            It was May 28, 2008 and Wofford and my brother were competing in the SoCon championship on the road to the College World Series. Wofford quickly won their first game against Elon, then dropped their next one to the College of Charleston. Now my brother was one lost away from having baseball taken away from him.

          The night before Wofford was scheduled to play a must win game against The Citadel, My family and I went to dinner. We discussed what was going on and joked around. Then the topic of tomorrow could be my brothers last organized baseball game came up. I could tell my brother was not ready to have this game taken away from him. I was wasn't ready to have the privilege of watching my brother play baseball get taken away from me.

        So the day finally came, it was a must win game for both Wofford and The Citadel. The game seemed to last for days. Wofford jumped off to a quick lead off a two RBI double by Emre. But The Citadel struck back with a three run home run to take the lead. This is where The Citadel took the momentum and ran with it. They lead eight to two going into the ninth. My brother was scheduled to take his last at bat. So my mom got out her phone, to record this memory that would soon be cherished. Then something terrible happened, the Wofford head coach pinch hit for Emre to allow for another senior to take his last at bat. The realization that i would never watch my brother play baseball again hit me like a bus.

        After the game we waited to see how my brother was doing. He walked out depressed with his head down, not wanting to realize the game had just been taken away from him. I rushed to give him a hug because I knew how much this game meant to him. This is something im going to have to face one day. Its something you can't prepare for, one day the game is going to be taken away from you rather your eighteen or forty, it will be taken away from you. So i have taken away from this experience, to truly cherish all the time i have to play the great game of baseball.

Nick's Narrative

Nick Lucchesi

Mrs. Hudak

American Lit

5 Febuary, 2015

There was a time about a year ago where I ignored what my parents had told me. It was a Friday during my sophomore year that we were going to be dismissed from school early, around 11, 11:30. I had thought about not going to school that day because there were other things I would have rather done then just go to school for a couple hours because we really wouldn’t have had much to do in the time that we were going to be there. Earlier in the week I was talking to a couple of friends, just kind of talking about a few things that we could do instead of going to school. There were a few things that we could do such as just sleeping in, meeting up at the beach later, or just chill and watch TV or play video games. But the following day which was a Saturday, was the date of the Low Country Red Fish Cup tournament in Beaufort. This tournament was one of the biggest Red Fish tournaments of the year. So I had talked my friend who was fishing with me and he said that he could get out of school for the day, and I thought I could just miss the half day since we wouldn’t be doing much. It was Thursday night and I was explaining to my Dad how important it would be if we could pre fish Friday for the tournament so that we could have more spots and have a better idea of where the fish would be with the specific tide and wind conditions. My Dad understood how important it would be if we could pre fish, but at the same time he thought that I should go to school then just fish after. But I knew that if I wanted to pre fish the tides that we would have for the tournament, I would have to be on the water by about 8, 8:10. Considering all that my Dad still wanted me to go to school for the half day. So of course I just simply said yes. The following morning my parents had a business meeting so they would be leaving around the same time I would be leaving for school. So we left and I had made the turn like I was going to the school. I turned around and hitched up the boat, and Gavin and I went fishing. Everything was going fine until Gavin got a call from the school wondering where he was, luckily neither of us got in serious trouble, but I think we both may have learned our lesson about skipping school.  

Briden's Blog post

-Briden Dyess 

-English3 

-Narrative Writing Assignment 

God Bless My Little Niece!

     Emma was born on October 31st, 2013. She was delivered in the Bulloch Memorial Hospital in Statesboro, Ga. She has made a change in not only my life but my whole family. Emma made each and every one of us very happy when she entered the world. She is definitely the cutest thing I have ever seen. Emma brings pride and joy into my family; she honestly couldn’t make us any happier. 

     Emma is now 1 year old. Six months ago my Mom noticed that she wasn't developing well enough and hadn’t reached the point she should have at the age of six months. My mom said to my sister in law, “Jackie we need to take Emma to the doctor…” Jackie has this look on her face  in like what do you mean we need to take her to a Doctor? She was very confused and scared. They begin to discuss Emma’s progress and at that moment, Emma’s mom realizes that Emma isn’t doing as well as other 6 month old babies are doing.  She could not sit up by herself, she was not even trying to crawl, she was not pulling herself up or any of the other things a 6 month old should be doing.  They had to make an appointment to take Emma to get checked out. They went to the Doctor to see why Emma hadn’t reached the mile stones she is supposed to. The Doctor ran all kinds of test and the feed back they got was difficult to hear. 

     They received a call from the Doctor, he said “Emma has been diagnosed with Chromosomal Migration Syndrome.” The effects of this type Syndrome are that she could possibly never talk, or walk. However there is a wide range, from minimal to severe delays in development. The tears broke out, and we thought it’s all going down hill from here. None of us knew what to do at this point. We were all so heart broken and in a state of shock. My Mom tries to keep all of our heads held high and do the very best to think positive. She says to us, “Everything will turn around and be alright, just try to keep your head held high.”

       Emma is now in therapy and has been in therapy for quite some time. She has a lot of developmental delays however she is progressing.The Doctors say that with proper physical therapy and speech therapy there is a good chance that she will walk and talk in time. This is a  thing that you think always happens to someone else and not to your family. Never take life for granted and always cherish what you have. Although Emma will always be a “special” child, she will always be SPECIAL to me.

Valuable Lessons

Trammy

Having sisters can be a joy, or a threat. They will either build you up one day and break you down the next. Although thru all the breaking down and constant annoyance it will build new perspectives and character. In this particular experience I’ve learned a very valuable lesson, from a dangerous situation.

My sister Maggi and I, were jet-skiing thru the water on vacation. We traveled to the Bahamas where the water is crystal clear. Maggi loves to fool around, especially if i'm involved in it. Jet-skiing thru the bohemian waters is a surreal experience, except for one little concern. It just so happens thru all this clear, transparent water. I notice a big black blob following us. Almost as if he was stalking the jetski. As I looked a little harder I realized it was a shark. Although I don’t hate sharks, out of water. I can’t imagine being in the same water as them. The thought to me is terrorizing.

Maggi never noticed the shark in the water, maybe do her oversized ray-bans. Not to mention she is scuba certified, which means she has no problem with sharks, eals, anything that can potentially kill you. Maggi being the jokester she is, pushed me off the jetski. The jet ski was my safety. Separating me from gliding thru tropical water and the terrorizing beasts in the water below me. As Maggi pushed me off, traveling thru the air like a duck flying in a hunting plantation. I could feel the water shower me in its imminent doom.

As I feel into the ocean I noticed my sister laughing at me. At this time nothing was funny to me. My biggest concern at the time was to get out of the water as quickly and efficiently as possible. As I turned around I felt as if I starred the devil right in his beaming eyes. As i’m imagining trying to fight this beast, a miracle happened to me. The beast did not move, it simply looked at me. At this time my sister came and picked me up and it made me realize something. There was actually no beast in the water, just a shark. A shark that was curious, not looking for any trouble.

My predetermined views on sharks made me think I was gonna be the next scene in Jaws. 

In fact it was the quite opposite. At the end of the day i'm happy Maggi pushed me in. It taught me 

to not judge something from its appearance. Not only sharks in general but humans as well. The 

old saying “Don't judge a book by its cover” finally made sense to me at that point. I hope for 

more eye opening experiences like this for the future for not only me but everyone, next time a 

little less scary though.

First Day of Boarding School

Chc

Summer is coming to an end, I’m enjoying the last couple of warm weather weeks with my friends. While everyone else is picking up school supplies and new school clothes, I’m getting new bedding and laundry detergent. This is because I’m going to be starting, what I will find out later, one of the most memorable adventures of my life; boarding school.

I remember texting one of my friends on the way up to school “What if no one likes me? What if my roommate smells bad?” The fear was so real. I left my home of 14 years on an early Saturday morning. The drive was seven hours and boy did it feel like seven weeks. We would be going up north into the mountains and three hours into the drive you could tell. We got out to stop at a rest stop briefly and it was 8 degrees cooler. The mountains we drove through were beautiful. I remember thinking it’s such a change of scenery compared to my beach life, but I didn't mind.

 

We were two hours away from school and it started to become a reality. My mom, dad, and brother were actually going to leave me there, alone. The whole summer I was so excited but that excitement turned to fear. I got a hot flash and I started to tear up a little bit. Then I got a text message from my best friend saying “I know you are nervous, but you are going to do so great today! Make lots of new friends and don’t miss me too much.” My mom looked up and saw me with tears rolling down my face and she asked “What's wrong?” I looked at her and that was the moment that it really hit me, I wasn't going to see her face everyday, or laugh at things that happened during our day together. I told my mom “I don't know why I’m crying! I’m so excited to be going but my emotions are everywhere right now.” My mom giggled and said “I understand, my emotions are all over the place too.”  After we talked I couldn't help but feel sad, even though I was going to be starting this new adventure, I would have to do it without her.

We finally arrived to the town where my school was located and that’s when I started to get excited again. Ten minutes later we approach the school and it took my breath away. The campus was beautiful; I was surrounded by mountains and hills. The grass was so green and there were people everywhere. We found my dorm and it was so cute. My dorm mom came up to me and right away she gives me a hug, she says “Welcome to the George dorm family!” There were other girls sitting on the couches and they were giggling and talking, just having a good time. I met my roommate shortly after getting my room setup. Her name was Allana and she didn't smell bad after all. Allana told me that this was her second year at this school and then she asked me if I was nervous, I remember her saying “Don’t worry it will take some time to get used to living on your own but all of the girls are really supportive here. You will fit right in.” After that I finally let myself breathe, I told Allana “Thank you so much for saying that. It makes me feel so much better, I was so nervous.” Allana was really nice and introduced me to some other girls and we went to the dining hall together. We all sat down and I looked around and there were so many students and teachers sitting together, everyone really looks like they are enjoying themselves. Shortly after leaving the dining hall my mom came up to me and I could tell she was just crying and she said that they were leaving. I didn't want her to go but I knew that she couldn't stay forever. I embraced her in a tight hug and she whispered in my ear “You are going to do great things and I am so proud of you”. I smiled because I knew I would see her soon. I told my little brother and dad goodbye and they got into the truck and drove away. Walking back to my dorm after saying goodbye wasn't too hard because my new friends joined me.

 Later that afternoon everyone on campus was asked to come out to this big field and play games. It was a perfect way to introduce everyone. Looking all around I didn't see one person not smiling or talking to someone. It got loud and intense and everyone was enjoying themselves. We played tag and had a pie eating contest along with some other things. We all went to the dining hall after and got some ice cream and headed back to our dorm. That night all 24 girls in my dorm, crowded into the common room and had our first dorm meeting. We went over the rules and our schedules for the next couple of days. It ended with us all laughing and eating donuts. After our dorm meeting we all went around and mingled and Allana, my roommate,  and I really hit it off. She and I had a lot more in common than what we thought. I went to bed that night knowing that I had made the right decision coming to this new school, and I was very excited to start my new journey.