Bella Week 4

Do you ever feel stressed- okay maybe that’s an obvious answer- but I don’t know. Lately all I hear is “college this, college that” and frankly, it’s exhausting. Seriously, I get it- talk about getting stuff thrown in my face. Okay yes, I realize I sound angsty, but here I am on my 4th rewrite of my college essay, and it’s still not up to par. Basically we’re being told to capture ourselves within 650 words- essentially placing us in a box. I have so much I want to write, so many things I want to explain and spark something, some emotions within others and yet how in the world am I supposed to do that within 650 words? Seriously! I swear, to say I’m stressed would be an understatement if anything I’m having an existential crisis over here; that may be an exaggeration but let’s just roll with it. There’s just so much I want to write and yet I feel unable to do so, this might sound weird, but I almost want to write yet another version of my essay, but solely for myself. A little secret per-say, a special gift to myself where I can fully express everything I want to say- no boxes or limits. Just me, the raw and vulnerable me. 

Alicia-3 and 4

My brother won his meet today and set a course record. No surprise there. I bet there will be a point where he wins a meet and is still disappointed because its slower than his PR (personal record). This just goes to show to show that how we feel about things is all relative to our own experiences. Another kid on his team might be ecstatic to finish in the middle of the pack because he's so used to coming in toward the very end. The example my 9th grade english teacher gave us was brushing her daughters hair. She told us how her daughter screamed and acted as if she was be tortured whenever she had her hair brushed. Naturally, we want to roll our eyes at this because to us it doesn't seem like a big deal. To the child, though, it could possibly be the worst pain she has ever experienced, having only been alive four years or so.

We though we had lost our dog today. When my sister and I got home from cross country practice, she wasn't in the house. We searched everywhere we could think of and checked the yard in case some had let her out and forgotten to let her back in. We were really worried by then, and I was all set to get in the car and drive around town looking for her. A few minutes later, my mom spotted my brother walking the dog down the street (I had actually wondered if this was a possibility, but when I suggested it, they had insisted that there was no way that he could have beaten us home). Sometimes, I question whether or not I would be able to handle an emergency situation, especially when I'm babysitting. Sometimes, I don't really know if I am capable enough to be put in charge of others. But, when I remained calm in that stressful situation, it made me feel like maybe I actually can handle it.

Nolan 3

I wonder what fish do all day. They look for food, but what else do they do? Do they sleep a lot? 

Teagan-3

I wonder if plants feel pain.  Really random thought. I just saw my grandmother this weekend, and, since she's gardner, she weeds her garden almost daily.  And, I know, weeds are intrusive and don’t have any benefits for gardners, so, of course, they should be removed. But still, plants are living, could they feel pain?  We’re living and we feel pain, so what’s different about plants...

Grace - Week 3

Finishing my college essay was such a lift off my shoulders, and I finally feel less stressed by everything I have to do at once.

Jennifer - Week 3

We took ghost pictures in photography today with our pinhole cameras. A ghost picture is when someone stands in front of the camera for half the exposure time, then quickly leaves. This creates the illusion of the person being see through like a ghost. These pictures made me think about all of the people who went to this school in the past, and what stories they might have to tell. I wonder if we have anything in common, or if what they went through was similar to my own experience. It also makes me wonder what would happen if there was a real ghost roaming the halls...

Claire Shea – Week 3

My watch is sometimes loud, sometimes silent. It's loud when I'm in my room and I hear how its ticks are out of sync with the clock. It's silent when I'm in the crowd, or when there's someone else around me, or when I forget to keep track of everything. It's somewhere in the middle when I'm trying to fall asleep at night and its noise fades in and out. When that happens, it takes effort to ignore, in the same way I try to ignore my own heartbeat when I start to hear it.

Julia-Week 3

The other day my dad and I got rear-ended as we were leaving W.A. Neither one of us got hurt and the person who hit us is completely fine, which I’m grateful for. But it got me thinking about what could have happened had the impact been stronger. We all could have been really injured and I’m just thankful that the person didn’t hit us harder.

Week 2

What would my life be like if I were a clock. How would I perceive life.

Shawn Week 3

I feel like I would go to sleep earlier and generally be better as a functioning human being if people would leave me alone in the afternoon to do my own thing for more than 5 minutes. Yet here I am as the clock strikes 4 am, just laying between 3 problems in my head on my bed 2 hours from school... I need like, 1 minute to think about how I'll survive tomorrow

Ryan Week 3

I can't help but wonder what will life be like after school. What will it be like to spend most of my day working a job I don't even like? I hope its a question I never figure out the answer two, but I can't help but worry that I will.

Maggie Mullen week 3
I went to see billy Joel over the weekend and he told the crowd that he saves 4 front row seats for people who got back row seats because he knows that they are probably the biggest fans because they’re the ones who can’t necessarily afford a ticket but save up for months and still come. Imagine being one of those people who won front row seats.  

Grace - Week 2

I know people say that when you aren’t able to see someone for a while it makes it that much more worth it, but it sucks how everything comes to a temporary end at some point.

Reddington - Week 2 & 3

I was pushing carts at market basket and I noticed a lady sitting in her car laying back all the way she had 7 car air fresheners I didn’t take much notice at first then I saw she had still been at market basket 3 hours later in a different parking spot what was she doing casing the place, maybe she was a ghost spooky but no she was most likely waiting for her son to finish working or her significant other to finish shopping it would be really cool if it was something cooler than that maybe she wasn’t even real but a figure my mind conjured up after mindlessly pushing carts for hours no sadly probably not bummer

I recently got back in touch with an old friend from middle school I lost to time and little did I know he is more similar to me than I thought I guess no one is alone in how they feel after all.

Skye- Week 3

daily reminder: you don't miss the moment, you miss the idea of it.

Audrey Week 3

Me and my friends were talking about thoughts while studying today. One of my friends said, “I don’t have thoughts, information just passes along my brain.” Despite the obvious joke this was, for some reason, I immediately visualized thoughts as cute little crabs scurrying along a brain-like plane. Scuttling into bushes, or resting in the open, or rooting themselves deep within the sand. It might be interesting to explore the imagery in a poem.

Annika- Week 3

I think I’ve realized that I often write about what I’m afraid of or paranoid about. Take the other for example, my journal consisted of what if a serial killer became a teacher. And last Friday, I went to a hibachi restaurant and then I wrote a journal entry about what would happen if someone was caught in a hibachi fire. Maybe it’s my way of coping with fear. Or maybe there’s something wrong with me. Or maybe I’m just “creative”. All I know is it makes for some interesting story ideas.

Hannah - Week 3

I saw this shirt in the Paper Store, and I couldn't decide whether it was funny, offensive, or just plain weird. I asked a few of my bisexual friends, and got mixed answers. Is this a joke at the expense of bisexuals? Alcoholics? Both? Neither?

Bella Week 3

I don’t know why, but I was in criminal minds class today, when it just hit me. Anything can happen at any time. Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. As a child I used to be fascinated and frightened, quite frankly, about the idea of an asteroid hitting earth. It could happen any second- even as I’m writing this- and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Unless superheroes are real, but I highly doubt that, call me cynical. I just don’t think the odds are in our favor of finding radioactive spiders able to give superhuman powers. I don’t know, the whole experience in class just gave me an off feeling. Sure, it got ideas turning, but it also sent chills down my spine. Who’s to say when an asteroid could actually hit earth, or a zombie epidemic breaks out. Just some food for thought.

Elaina - 2

1. The college process is so stressful and there is so much riding on seniors right now. i don’t think anyone really understands this kind of feeling besides us; the ones going through it 

Teagan-2

I suddenly find myself loving country music.  I can’t pinpoint a specific moment when I realized I loved it, I simply turned on my phone and said to myself “I think I’ll listen to some country music today”.  And I have listened to country every day since. Funny how things like this happen, we change overnight and don’t even understand why. We just wake up, and are different.  I’m not complaining though, I really love country music (shoutout to Thomas Rett and Sam Hunt).

Claire Shea – Week 2

The notebook in front of me is green, the color of limes and pine needles. Green like tree frogs, or springtime, or Sprite bottles. Green can mean other things, too, like the last two zucchini in a grocery store or the green stoplight above the scene of a crash. It's the color that our eyes capture best, it's everywhere around us, it's hard to do anything else when you're looking at the cover of your notebook and getting lost in a whirl of green.

Alicia-2

I could't find my lab notebook today, which is distressing because it's a major part of our grade in bio. Usually, when I lose things and can't find them easily, I just wait until I come across them. It's worked out pretty well for me so far. I feel like this approach could apply to a lot of aspects of our lives. I just mean that if we worry about certain things less instead of trying to control every little thing, we'd be better off. Like running, if you agonize constantly over the support on your shoes, your form, when and how you should train, what to eat or not eat before a race, it usually doesn't end up making things any better.

p.s. I found my notebook about ten seconds after I wrote then entry. It was in my accordion folder the whole time.

Bri Gurney Week 2

Dissociative Identity Disorder is a disorder that is caused by PTSD and is commonly misunderstood as schizophrenia. It can also be called Multiple Identity Disorder and you don’t commonly see stories written from the perspective of someone with the disorder. People with this disorder have also been portrayed as villains, monsters, or crazy people. 

Jaramie - 2

I look around at the freshman and I wonder if they really see me as a senior. I don’t really feel like a senior. I mean I guess no one is older than us in the school, I’m buying my senior shirt and all but I don’t feel the way I felt like I would feel? Senior year is already exhausting purley because of how much I’ve been thinking about being a senior, all the lasts I have yet to face and the firsts that will come sooner than I know. 

Audrey S - Week 2

Sometimes less really is more. I always tend to work in “maximum-effort” mode, to the point where I literally don’t know how to put minimum effort into anything. That sounds like a good thing at first, until you’re spending hours on one piece of homework because the lines aren’t straight, or because you could’ve articulated that one sentence in a better way. The same goes for writing for me, I tend to do too much, which can confuse the reader and make my writing worse. But I don’t know how to go about tackling this - how do I reverse a habit so ingrained in how I do anything>

Nolan 2

Getting out of the routine of things is good sometimes. Time goes by a lot faster when you try and go through the motions, but a few new things can slow life down.

Paige Week 2

 Sometimes in the middle of the Night I'll wake up and write myself a note. It could be a piece of imagery from a dream, or an idea for a story. I usually don't remember what I wrote or that I even wrote anything. This morning I woke up to
"Frogs, There are so many frogs."

Hannah - Week 2

I had a really weird dream last night: I dreamt that a classmate was caught in a fire. He lived, but he was badly scarred and couldn't remember what happened the night of the fire. The fire hadn't been set by accident; a bunch of teachers and parents were definitely in on it. Some of them had even been near the site of the fire, watching. Maybe I've been watching too much Elite, or my forensics class is getting to me, but it was a really interesting story. I was disappointed when my alarm woke me up.

Shawn Week 2

Some story beginning with a really short background in the style of...

"My name is Gerald Geraldson and you’re probably wondering how I got in this situation

It all started the day I was born

My parents threw me in a pit… and that’s how I got here"

Julia-Week 2

I had a really good weekend. I spent quality time with my family at my cousin’s house and we had a really nice time. I really don’t know what I’d do without any of them.

Jennifer - Week 2

I had a really great day today. I laughed a lot and it seemed like I wasn't the only one in a good mood. My teachers, both at school and at dance, appeared to be enjoying the day as well. It is also the first week of the dance year so all of the younger girls were bubbly and excited. Even if I had been in a bad mood, being around people who are happy and cheerful, would have made my day better. It always feels great to share a good mood with people and cheer up their day as well as make yours brighter.

Ryan Week 2:

The idea that every little decision having led you to wherever you are currently dawns upon me. This makes me interested to know what life would be like if one small decision was different and if the world as a whole could even be different because of that one small decision.

Annika- Week 2

Dances are basically a metaphor for life. There’s times when you are up in the air and feeling great and then you’re on your knees and confused. There are parts that you understand and are comfortable with. There are parts that are confusing and you don’t get and that you can’t handle. In the end, you’re either happy with the result or left confused and stressed.

Bella Week 2

Singing for no reason, off pitch, and loudly by yourself. That and the occasional breaking out into dance in the middle of the kitchen, also alone. It’s crazy how just being silly and letting loose can inspire so much within me, it happens more often than I’d like to admit but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Call me weird, but it’s underrated, change my mind.

Maggie Mullen week 2

“18 years ago tonight (September 10 2001) millions of people went quietly to bed with no thought, that the next morning, their world would change forever. That night hundreds packed flight bags that they would not live to open. Thousands slept with loved ones for the last time. No one ever knows what each new day has in store for them. Let us live everyday to the fullest and never miss a chance to tell those dearest to us we love them. So tonight tell a person you love that you love them”

Skye- Week 2
9/13/19- Last night I couldn't sleep. A train of never ending thoughts bombarded me as I lay in bed. So I wrote them all down like Mr. Humphrey said to do so I won't forget them. I ended up transferring my thoughts to paper for hours. It's funny how the clearest and deepest thoughts fall from your mind when your trying to fall asleep.

Ryan - Week 1

I find that I'm always arriving places a few minutes late. Even when I get ready those few minutes earlier, I still get there that exact same time and I never can understand why.

Nolan-1

Golf is the most aggravating sport you can play. You can be at the point of quitting, but one good shot raises your hopes just enough to keep you going. You may hit a shot out of bounds, then re-tee and hit it the furthest you have in your life. Golf is a rollercoaster ride you want to get off of but decide to stay on at the last second.

Claire Shea - Week 1

There were only 2 zucchini left at the grocery store today. Zucchini must be popular right now; I wonder why. Maybe it's because summer/zucchini season is coming to an end. Seeing the 2 zucchini alone in the bin makes me want to buy them, except I don't know how to cook zucchini and I hate the taste of raw vegetables. I try to imagine what all the past customers (or maybe just one zucchini lover) are making with them right now; salads, I suppose.

Hannah - Week 1

High on the list of things worrying me this week: fashion. I went back-to-school shopping over the weekend and I was struck by just how much stuff is essentially made by slave labor. All these sweaters and shoes made in sweatshops, and I'm paying ten dollars for them. What can I do? How do I balance my love for beautiful clothes with my love for people?

Jennifer - Week 1

I think I passed my friend's younger brother's friend in the hallway today. It's strange for me to think of my friend's brother and his friends as high school freshmen, since I've known them since elementary school. I remember when the four of us would play Wii games and fight over who got the comfy chairs. I'm just realizing now how long ago that really was. Time seems to be moving faster, and I have just started to notice it. It probably is because I've just noticed how much older we've all gotten.

Alicia-1

I don’t think guys always understand that it’s not physically possible for us to do what they can do. Take cross country for example, the girls are not as fast as the guys, but it’s not due a lack of effort. It’s just different body chemistry. Though it’s sad to admit, sometimes the people who work the hardest aren’t the ones who are at the top of their classes, play on a varsity team, or are the most attractive. Hard work is a factor, but it’s also not the ultimate determining factor on how well you can do something.

Audrey - Week 1

I have ideas for characters, stemming from the characters I develop as a visual artist, but I’m struggling to find a plot that connects them. Weirdly enough, though, I think I want them in some way to be led or guided by a wise-woman archetype, like a grandmother. In my head it seems like the best way to connect them, because they are so different, through learning to handle life or obstacles that are thrown in them.

Reddington - week one

My mom and I were driving home from my uncle's house and we were talking about how it is wrong how people are almost forced into doing things that their parents want them to do i hear kids all the time talking about how their parents are forcing them to become doctors or lawyers or businessmen and almost none of them actually want to do it and only do because they feel they need to, this made me feel really lucky about what I have my family is very supportive to me and everyone and I feel like it is so strange that others are aloud to tell people what to do with their lives and force them to live their way like this is the plot to so many tv shows and movies and it’s surreal like I don’t understand how this is normal in society and is just accepted

Teagan-1

Do you ever have days where you’re in a good mood and don’t know why?  Days where, even if you get a bad grade on a test, or realize you have lunch with no one you know, you’re still in a good mood?  I’m having one of those days, and, though I don’t know why, I plan to enjoy every moment of it.

Bella Week 1

I guess it could be said that today was a rather slow day, by the time I got home it felt as though an entire week had passed, even though that is most certainly not the case. In fact I was laying in bed, just staring up at the ceiling when I finally felt at peace. I don’t know why but I always enjoy the small span of time between getting into my bed and actually falling asleep. It's time to myself, no one around to question or talk to me. Now, it’s not that I don’t enjoy being around people, I actually love it, but having time to myself? It’s nice. My mind wanders, and I am able to just simply process and think about the day or what I hope for tomorrow. It’s a time for inspiration to hit and dance around in my head. I guess it’s time for just me, myself, and I. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Skye- Week 1

Time has evaded us once again.

Elaina Week 1

working with little kids makes my days so much brighter. the curiosity and optimism in their eyes is incredible. they haven’t yet been exposed to the terrors of the world. if only we could go back to that time. 

Jaramie - 1

Getting up and having to get somewhere, like school, as quick as possible as to not be late is one of the most urgency filled moments in life. Suddenly a morning routine that used to take me 40 minutes takes me 6. It’s a great way to start a story, starting off on a run.

Grace Week 1

Although my exchange student speaks a different language, it is crazy how many things are universal in our world. A smile, a laugh, a smirk, a hug, a high five. They all mean the same thing to us. And we can play games, like basketball and cornhole, and not have to understand one another other than the rules of the game. We just come together and have the same goal of winning. I think that’s what this whole exchange is about.

Lovely 1
Seated at the same table.
Sitting in different chairs.
Democracy

Annika- Week 1

Today as the bus was pulling out of WA, I looked out the window and saw a guy in his car fixing his hair in his rearview mirror. He kept stopping and starting again periodically and occasionally making faces at himself. And I started thinking about how we are never alone. Like even when we think we’re by our selves at home someone is bound to notice you, even the pet goldfish. I guess that could be an interesting poem concept, because never being alone could be good or bad. Do you find it comforting that someone will protect you or do you not like being stalked by your cat? Take it as you will.

Shawn week 1

The house didn’t make a so much as a murmur, yet here I am causing a stir

A story or movie where it’s an older sister and a younger brother in an apocalypse situation. And she has to explain things in a way that he will understand and almost make it fun. “Building a fort” for building a shelter. 

Week 1-Julia Bisso

The other day, my best friends and I went to Manchester, New Hampshire to participate in a stair climb in order to honor the firefighters, police, first responders and other safety services who risked and lost their lives during the 9/11 attack that took place 18 years ago. We climbed 110 flights of stairs and I am so proud of us for completing the climb.

Week 1 Maggie Mullen
On Friday my friends and I did a stair climb to honor the firefighters and first responders who died climbing the 110 flights up the World Trade Center. Seeing the other first responders climbing the stairs on Friday in all of their gear really made me think about how much the first responders risked going into the buildings to save others life’s on 9/11.