Snow

Author's Note: In Language Arts, my teacher told us to write a journal prompt about snow. I chose to kind of see the negative effect of snow because I want spring to come!


Snow falls from the heavens,
It covers the city in a blanket,
Yet leaving it icy and cold,
Temperatures drop,
Leaving the world frigid,
Coated with snow,
Jack Frost had done well,
Chill surrounded the town,
Keeping the people in for now,
As night settled in...

The Lady in Black

Author’s Note:  I was wondering what to write about, so I typed in “creative story starters” on Google. I found this website and it suggested that I write about a broken wristwatch, peppermints and a hug that had gone to far and this is what I came up with for my creative writing piece to accomplish some of my goals.

The lady told the elderly man to be careful and gave him a hug. She was dexterous; without his notice, she took his wallet from his coat pocket. Smiling, she walked away counting the loot. Her hair was so glossy; it reflected the sun like a mirror. Black engulfed her tiny figure as she walked inconspicuously down the sidewalk as if she was an ordinary person. She was on the move, walking apace up Main Street and meandering through the maze of the city, only stopping once to pop a peppermint in her mouth. When the woman passed an alley, she backtracked to it, finding a broken wristwatch. The glass was cracked in multiple spots and the time hands hung limp; the woman twisted her lip deciding what to do with it. She decided to pocket the wrist watch, irresolute to its value or purpose, and ran down the rocky path in between the buildings to her destination. Arriving, she took a seat at the bar, which desperately needed a clean up, from the splintered wooden counters and the cracked chairs. Nonetheless, the woman felt at home again.

Just Let Me Be

Author’s Note:  I am currently reading Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The main character, Ethan, falls in love with Lila. She’s a Caster and he’s a Mortal, who weren’t supposed to even like each other in the first place. Lila is a poet who write about life, but knows that on her birthday, her life may change forever when she will become evil or good. If she were to turn into vicious monster of her former self who still writes poetry, Lila may write something like what I wrote below, to Ethan.

Lila:
You were there in my dreams,
And I don’t know what that means,
Was it possible for us to be?
I think about it all the time,
The more I think about you,
The more I miss us,

Wish I could rewind the clock,
So far back I didn’t know you,
Could’ve saved me so much pain,
Could’ve saved you so much time,
Time spent somewhere else,
Not thinking about you...

Turn back the clock,
Lose the memories,
Forget our dreams,
See reality,
We’ll never be together,
So just let me be...

Kodak Moment

Author's Note:  In language arts today, we made word trains where the words have to begin with the letter the last word ended with (i.e. dog, gill, late, emu . . . ). In one of my word trains I came up with Kodak somehow and I wrote about about a Kodak moment.

I want a Kodak moment. What is Kodak? It's a camera and printer company. Now what's a Kodak moment? It's the perfect picture, a perfect moment captured on camera. You know how all of the camera packaging comes out with all these smiles and saying things like "Capture the moment with Kodak!" and happy people. I want to smile and just have fun, but I don't really. Why don't I all the time? A part of me, the deepest and fearful part of me says, "Welcome to reality. It sucks." Then the other light, happy, little kid like voice tells me to go and chase my dreams and live life. In the middle of this swirling vortex called my soul, is me. I want a perfect moment captured on camera, so on those days that I'm not so happy, I can look at it and say there's my Kodak moment. Right here in front of me. The perfect moment.

The Song of Taylor Swift, Gertrude and Lucas

Author’s Note:  For a point of view assignment, I wrote a short story from the point of view of the mean girlfriend in Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” Since it’s a long song, just click the song title above to see the lyrics. I tried to base a lot of the story on the song, tying in aspects from the music video, and I got the names from Taylor as herself. The guy who plays the neighbor in the video is actually named Lucas, so I used Luke and I just used Gertrude, or Gigi, just because. (Note:  that the stars between the little blurbs of text separate different times and parts of the song.) I also wrote a response to the lyrics which is directly below. At the very bottom after the story, I wrote a paragraph to analyze why I wrote things the way I did in Gigi’s point of view.

I have loved the song You Belong With Me, written and sung by Taylor Swift, since it came out. The lyrics are in the point of view of Taylor, as herself when the neighbor she is in love with is dating a popular girl who isn't suitable for him. His name in the short story is Luke, or Lucas. Taylor sings about how Luke belongs with her and not with his villainous, popular girlfriend. Taylor knows that she has a special connection with Luke, but he doesn’t perceive it yet.

Taylor composes the song so that people can comprehend how strongly she believes that Luke needs break up with Gigi. The listeners interpret the vibe that Luke is a great guy and he doesn’t belong with the mean girl, but he belongs with Taylor because they’re perfect for each other. The lyrics that explain this are, “Hey whatcha doing with a girl like that?,” and “Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you? Been here all along so why can't you see? You belong with me.”

“She doesn’t get your humor like I do,” and, “And she'll never know your story like I do,” tell listeners that this girl, Gigi, doesn’t connect with Luke as Taylor does, because she also sings, “I'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry, I know your favorite songs and you tell me about your dreams.” Gigi is bringing him down, when Taylor knows that she could make him happier. When she says, “And you've got a smile that could light up this whole town I haven’t seen it in a while, since she brought you down. You say you find I know you better than that.”

If the song was reversed in Gigi’s point of view, it may talk about how Gigi is annoyed by Taylor’s particular interest in her boyfriend and how Gigi is irritated by Luke. People may not see that Taylor is a great person that Luke doesn't see, but instead see that she is trying to steal Luke away, as Gigi could easily feel threatened by that and see how she could be such an infamous girl. To demonstrate this, I wrote a short story in Gigi’s point of view.

“Lukeeee-booo!!! I cannot believe you said that about me!” I shout through the phone. I pace back and forth across my lux fur carpet while I’m cursing at my boyfriend in my thoughts, but I couldn't discompose myself infront of anyone. Especially him. After all, I’ve been building a picture perfect image ever since elementary school when I was--I couldn’t even think it, there were too many terrible memories connected with my past.

His voice snaps me back to reality. “I didn’t say that, I swear, Gertrude,” he told me. “I’m really sorry to hear that.” His sincere voice was totally forced; I trained the boy well.

“I know you did so do not deny it. And call me Gigi, not that atr--bad name,” I demanded. Whew, I almost said atrocious! Sweet nibblets, I must be my new dumb, dark haired doll now. Right. Not southern bumpkin, not bullied girl. Pretty, poised and polite.

"Sorry, babe," he said again, with his nonchalant attitude.

Ugh. I rolled my eyes. “Babe this, babe that. Call me when you’d like to commit to this relationship!” I screeched at the top of my lungs, so loud it must’ve woken up the neighbors. Then just before I hung up I added sharply, “Admit it.”

I pressed the end button on my cell and tossed it on my bed. Oh my gosh! Boys. They can be so stupid sometimes, like Luke.

* * *

Perfectly poised in my Gucci heels and cream pink cardigan over my flowery lace tank-top, I rode over to Luke’s house in my shiny new convertible to pick him up for school on Monday and I found him talking to that girl, Taylor Swift. I give her a quick once over:  geeky glasses, jeans (not designer), t-shirt and sneakers. Ew.

Lukeeee-boo finally noticed me after what seemed like eternity; he got in and I stepped on the accelerator all the way to school. I was calmer after I thought about us dancing perfectly underneath a big beautiful disco ball as the Homecoming king and queen next Saturday.

* * *

“Blue and gold let's go-o-o-o-o! Knights!” I shouted. I gave my best death stare to Luke’s nerd of a neighbor in the band who keeps eying up at my Lukeeeee-booo.

After the game, he’s all sweaty in his football gear and he came up to me while I was standing with Andrew, the guy who consoled me after Luke's and my fight, standing protectively at my side.

"We are through, you hear me, Lucas?" I told him. Then I pointed my perfectly manicured finger at him and poked him with it just to show him I meant business. "And I'm through with you."

He muttered something like fine or whatever as he walked off the field. I thought to myself that he'll come crawling back to me, they always do. Hopefully.

* * *

I was stunning wearing my flaming, revealing, red dress imported from Paris, France and my long, perfect, dark hair was gracefully flowing, in my opinion anyway.

Luke was standing a few yards away and I decided to go and make up with him. “Hey Luke,” I said, sweetly to him as I come up to him. Silently, I ran through the future of this conversation in my head, what I hoped to happen, with him apologizing and us being the Homecoming royalty, slow dancing and then going out to that fancy new restaurant in town...

But instead, he brushed past me and I screamed, "What?!" making a huge scene.

I turned around and to see her standing there in a white cascading dress, where people are even making a path for her! She looked absolutely, positively perfect.

Luke was already going over to that Taylor Swift when I turned to grab his wrist, when he was already gone. It made me furious. He left me for a geek?! Shake it off, Gigi, I thought to myself. Whatever.

I figured that Gigi would be the typical from-a-movie-set vile, shallow, popular girl who is only beautiful on the outside, yet has a reason for covering her true self up behind makeup and designer clothes. What if there was something deeper that the song never captured? Like in Geek Charming, starring Sarah Hyland, who starts off really girly and catty, but when she makes a film with Matt Prokop's character, Josh, he discovers a total divergent person.

Why couldn’t Gigi be someone like Sarah’s character? Well, they both can’t show off their true personalities if they’re supposed to be diverse people on the outside. Gigi disguises herself like in the lyrics, “But she wears short skirts,” and in the music video, Gigi always has this snarky little grin on her face. You can see her body language really sets off that she’s in charge and no one will get in her way. Of course, people don’t actually know this for sure, though since it’s originally in Taylor’s point of view, there’s no certainty that Gigi is a good person deep down, it’s what I created. Taylor’s point of view made Gigi look bad, when really, if it was switched around, it may have varied inversely.

Accepting Herself

Author’s Note:  This essay includes the theme of accepting yourself in All-American Girl. I wrote about the main character, Samantha, and how she learns to accept herself throughout the book. What I love about this is that the last sentence of the book reads, “Because it wouldn’t be me.”

Samantha Madison is a nonconformist on the outside of the student body. In her family, she’s known as the black sheep because she is the middle child in her family. Her copper orange hair always frizzes out, which totally clashes with her black ensemble. She absolutely hates her life. In All-American Girl by Meg Cabot, Sam despite the adversity in her life, demonstrates confidence and finds how to accept herself.

Life for Sam is what she calls terrible. She’s gotten used to it; the love of her life, Jack, is dating her older sister, Lucy, who is the most popular girl in school and her parents don’t really pay attention to Sam unless she has bad grades. In the first few chapters, she’s definitely secure and stuck in her ways, but she wants something more:  freedom. Freedom, where she could do whatever she wanted and be whoever she wanted, free of the chains of society and family that constantly weighed her down.

Sam wished she could be Gwen Stefani because Gwen was not judged for anything and could do whatever she chose. In German class, she could basically do anything because she drew and art doesn’t have any limitations. Though when her parents see her failing German grades, they send her to Susan Boone’s art classes. She didn't like Susan, a woman Sam thought to be absolutely insane, so on the second day of art class, she skipped and stood outside. A man near her pulls a gun and aims it at the U.S. president! Without hesitating she quickly jumps on the man’s back, saving the president!

Rescuing Mr. President from a near brush at death earns Sam a newfound popularity, not just in school, but all over the U.S.A. She can’t believe that she could perchance be the Teen Ambassador―newly appointed by the president―or let alone a candidate. Sam has gone from a confident Goth to a raven-look-alike, precarious little girl who has been pushed out of her comfort zone into colored clothing, makeup and the spot light.

As a added bonus, Sam ends up meeting the president’s son, David, who is just like her, an outsider in black. As she spends more time with David, they grow closer. He
eventually teaches her that maybe being Sam isn’t all that bad. He points out how her art shows character and her clothes don’t define a person, that is was okay to put on colored clothes again.

Scott Parnel in the Hush, Hush series by Rebecca Fitzptrick is also another person like Sam, who starts out wanting to be anything except himself . He finds out that he is Nephilim, a half human and fallen angel. Now that Scott knows, he discovers new powers and learns to accept them for what they are when other characters show him how to use and control his powers. Both characters in the end, finally accept themselves because Sam and Scott are both special in their own ways.

Everyone is diverse and whether they chose to except themselves is their choice; Samantha and Scott did, because they realized that their lives aren’t all that awful. She may have frizzy hair and be a non-conformist who wears black all of the time, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. If she was anyone else, Sam wouldn’t have known David who taught her it's okay to just be her. Samantha gains self confidence, in spite of her differences, and finds how to accept herself in All-American Girl.