Fairy Tale Poem

Alice in wonderland

What is a book without pictures?

What is a song with out a melody?

What is a story with out an ending?

I get curiouser and curiouser with every growing question

You are late, late, late for a very important date

How can I grow as tall as a house,

and then shirk as small as a mouse

What really is nonsense?

Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't

Who are you? What kind of garden to you come from?

What makes a raven like a writing desk?

No time to say hellogoodbye

Off with their heads!

I think I was dreaming…?

Essay Responses

Response: My Time and Place among the Cows

The essay talks about how simple cows are.  Most of time you would think simple was a bad thing, but in this situation it is great.  Cows don’t need all the stuff to be happy. They work with the simple ingredients of grass, water, and a dry shelter from wind and rain or the summer sun.  But Dave Stewart points out that they make magic with those few and simple things.  They are able to produce so much for us.  We depend on them more then you would think.   They make the wonderful thing called milk and dairy and they do it by pure ingredients.  We put so much crap into our bodies and have all the latest technology, yet we can’t even make a major food group.

Dave Stewart also talks about how he feels cows stop time.  We as natural humans are stressed and we end up losing time.  But he explains when he watches his cows they are so tranquil and still, they make their time last.

He talks about what could have been.  Dave was a quad student before he started milking cows.  He states that as long as he continues to milk cows that burden is on his shoulder to deal with later in life.  He now appreciates his responsibilities towards the cows and thanks them for reminding him of the things that really matter. 

Response: Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

            Dani Weathers has been through a lot.  She experienced the one thing that can really change a person, the loss of a loved one.  Her father died from a motorcycle accident.  She was already a very depressed girl, but when her dad died it sent her down a downward spiral.  She began cutting and got more and more distant from her family and friends.  This is something so hard to help.  Because people that hurt themselves are nowhere near crazy.  They just want to feel something even if it is pain.  Dani says that the comment to get her to step up and change her self was one made by her ex-boyfriend; “It happened four years ago! Get over it already! Just move on!”  She wasn’t going to get over it but it woke her up.  She needed to deal with her problems a different way.  She was so afraid of people thinking she was crazy or giving her pity that she was hurting herself.  Reading her essay was a perfect example of people learning from their mistakes.  Hopefully people will be able to read her essay and won’t have to learn from their mistake but from her guidance.

Response: I Will Take my Voice Back

            Quique Aviles states that his addiction to crack will kill him, but performing and writing will save him.  I agree with him 100%.  Obviously if he was to go on in life with a crack addiction it would kill him.  But in my personally opinion it isn’t as easy to just stop.  You have to distract yourself. A great example with that is performing or writing.  Luckily for Quique performing is his job, but he has such a drug problem that no one looks at him as an actor but as a junkie.  I respect Quique for speaking up because he pointed out that admitting to his addiction is another way of saying actor suicide.  He explains where he came from and the lack of support for his choice in career.  He started to get evolved with acting as soon as crack became a known thing in D.C.   The comment that stuck out to me was “Crack is a killer. Crack turns a ladybug in your house into a hungry rat. Crack transports you into paranoid obsession. You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. Your high lasts 10 to 15 seconds so you need to keep pumping your brain with this poison over and over again.” It is so true that it turns into this horrible thing and the high is so short, but people still need to have it.  I understand addiction as far as someone who hasn’t experienced addiction can understand it.  Quique said he went to rehab 3 times.  The difference this time is that he is going to replace the drug with a hobby, performing/writing.  I respect Quique Aviles so much for being the few that make it out.

Response: Come to My Table

This essay wasn’t as powerful, but Shannon Denney still made her point.  She starts to talk about how she still thinks women should always make food for their family. And at first that outraged me, but then she explained in more detail on what she meant.  She simply loves the power of food.  Not so much for eating properties either. She loves how food can bring people together.  She says that if she had to make a 5 star dinner every night just for her family to come to her table at 6 o’clock, then she would do it.  I think it is actually refreshing that someone still idols family time that much in today society.  I personally wish my family was still this way.  

The crowd roared when my name was said for the winner.  The wave of nerves started to rush out of me out of my fingertips. I could hear every clap and yell.  The pat on my back nearly knocked me over.  I took a step to catch myself and looked at the person.  Their smile was fake and cheesy. “Congratulations you won!”

I leaned forward trying to fight the need to not fight back.  I took a few deep breaths to collect my thoughts.  I looked up and she was still looking at me with blank eyes, waiting for my reply.  Her lips parted to fix what she had said to me before, but she stopped herself with fear she would make it worse.  She began to tap her foot getting impatient.  “Hello! Answer me please!” I decided to take the high road so I shrugged my shoulders and walked away.   

Random word rotation story

I was sliding around on the floor. I could smell all the cheese I had planted.  I was going to catch this mouse.  I didn’t want to make a move and scare it back into hiding.  This mouse has been haunting me for too long.  That’s when it happened… I saw the mouse ran across the floor to the cheese trap.  The cheese was squishy and old from sitting out.  The mouse was about to bite down when all of the sudden a wave of guilt rushed over me.  I quickly made a loud noise and the mouse ran.  I then trapped it into a corner and was able to get it into a box.  I then delivered the mouse to its right habitat, the woods.  The mouse had an exuberant attitude when he was released. A shadow appeared high from the sky and I though nothing of it. The shadow got bigger and bigger until I could see what it was. The eagle form the ridge swooped down and caught the mouse right before.

Aghast with what just happened I walked back to my car and drove home depressed with the terrible turn of events. Seeing my tank was on “E” I pulled into the nearest 7/11 to fill my tank. As I pulled in I spied a pale, dark haired man lights a cigarette as he pumped gas into his tank, “NO” I cried but it was to late “BIZ BAM BOOM” went the fumes of the gasoline ablaze from this ignorant mans misplaced cigarette. The gas station was no more and I frantically pulled out my phone to dial 911. My hands sweaty from the excitement I could get a grasp on my phone and I fell shattering into a million pieces.

As I got back on to my feet I saw a cowboy driving by in his bug red pick up truck. He saw the place was in flames. I had just gotten off the phone with the police they were sending a fire crew down to out the fire. The cowboy and I try to help put out some of the fire. I saw that the cowboy had some sand in the back of his truck. “Hey can we use some of that sand to put the fire out?”

“Let’s just try something!” I exclaimed in a state of panic. We rushed over to the back of his truck and grabbed bag after bag of sand. In this very stressful moment, I could not help but dream of being at my grandparent’s house in Spain, eating pineapple every morning before going out on a new adventure. This certainly wasn’t a vacation in Spain, and this was also not the time to be thinking about it. The cowboy and I ran over and dumped sand on the fire, the raging flames almost touching my face. It helped a bit, but the fire continued to roar. After 5 minutes, the fire department arrived, and put down the raging beast. “Did anyone besides us survive?” I asked sadly, already knowing the answer.

Word Writting

I was sliding around on the floor. I could smell all the cheese I had planted.  I was going to catch this mouse.  I didn’t want to make a move and scare it back into hiding.  This mouse has been haunting me for too long.  That’s when it happened… I saw the mouse ran across the floor to the cheese trap.  The cheese was squishy and old from sitting out.  The mouse was about to bite down when all of the sudden a wave of guilt rushed over me.  I quickly made a loud noise and the mouse ran.  I then trapped it into a corner and was able to get it into a box.  I then delivered the mouse to its right habitat, the woods.  The mouse had an exuberant attitude when he was released. A shadow appeared high from the sky and I though nothing of it. The shadow got bigger and bigger until I could see what it was. The eagle form the ridge swooped down and caught the mouse right before.

Aghast with what I just happened I walked back to my car and drove home depressed with the terrible turn of events. Seeing my tank was on “E” I pulled into the nearest 7/11 to fill my tank. As I pulled in I spied a pale, dark haired man light a cigarette as he pumped gas into his tank, “NO” I cried but it was to late “BIZ BAM BOOM” went the fumes of the gasoline ablaze from this ignorant mans misplaced cigarette. The gas station was no more and I frantically pulled out my phone to dial 911. My hands sweaty from the excitement I could get a grasp on my phone and I fell shattering into a million pieces.

As I got back on to my feet I saw a cowboy driving by in his bug red  pick up truck. He saw the place was in flames. I had just gotten off the phone with the police they were sending a fire crew down to out the fire. The cowboy and I try to help put out some of the fire. I saw that the cowboy had some sand in the back of his truck. “Hey can we use some of that sand to put the fire out?”

“Let’s just try something!” I exclaimed in a state of panic. We rushed over to the back of his truck and grabbed bag after bag of sand. In this very stressful moment, I could not help but dream of being at my grandparent’s house in Spain, eating pineapple every morning before going out on a new adventure. This certainly wasn’t a vacation in Spain, and this was also not the time to be thinking about it. The cowboy and I ran over and dumped sand on the fire, the raging flames almost touching my face. It helped a bit, but the fire continued to roar. After 5 minutes, the fire department arrived, and put down the raging beast. “Did anyone besides us survive?” I asked sadly, already knowing the answer.

My trip to California

Lauren Bernard
Period 2

My Trip to California

“Lauren I swear! If you don’t get up right now...” was what I was awakened as my dad walked by door.  My dad’s voice sounded nervous and worrying.  He was afraid we weren’t going to leave in time to make the plane. He yelled for me and my sisters, Alyssa and Shae, to get up countless times.   Every time I heard him call, the less I wanted to wake up and face a very long day of travel.  My light then came on and there was no turning back.  So I rolled over and gazed at my father with my half blind eyes from the light shining.  He gave me that look that I had seen many times before: he meant business.  If my dad was to hate anything, it would be our vacation not going as he planned.  Step one, on all of his trips, is to get up ridiculously earlier and leave hours before the plane really takes off.  It is okay to play it safe, but he is just impatient.  I looked at my clock and realized it was 5:00 a.m. and our plane did not take off till 4 p.m.  Knowing that I could sleep for hours longer, I let him win. I woke up my sisters and then returned to my room, where I found my mom repacking my suitcase.  I saw cloths flying out of the suitcase and her disturbed face.  I was going to ask why, but I answered my own question because this was no surprise to me; she has done this on every vacation I have ever taken.  She kept shooting me the “look”.  It clearly stated “why in the hell would you pack this?”  She gets so stressed that things aren’t going to go well.

I am the middle child between two sisters.  My oldest sister at this time was about 18, my youngest was 9 and I was 13.  I am nothing like my two sisters.  I am the quiet one because they can talk enough for me.  I was expecting a fight to happen because of how controlling my parents were being.  Not only minutes later, I heard my sisters blaring at my father.  I’m sure he was prodding them to hurry and they snapped, however I decided to stay out of it and not find out the truth behind the fight.   I am the one they will always come to vent to, and it’s something I have become very acquainted with over the years.  I have become very good at nodding along. 

“Why is he so stupid and controlling?  Why can’t he just be a normal dad?” As my sisters yelled in my ear, I was thinking about the hours of sleep I was missing.  I was also thinking and hoping that everything would calm down once we arrived in beautiful California.  I had no idea what to expect, but from living in Ohio, my expectations were only to get better.   

The rest of the day felt like it was in fast forward.  I was on auto pilot until I was in my plane chair with a blanket over my head crying.  I have never been an admirer of planes, but my ear drum erupting was never something I thought would happen to me.  When my ear drum burst, we had just taken off so I had a whole plane trip to deal with pain.  It felt like someone was putting needles in my ears.  I could have let this ruin my vacation, but I still had hope it was going to turn around any second.  When we got off the plane, I took some medicine and calmed down.  Landing in California was astonishing, remarkable and incredible.  I had been waiting to come here for as long as I could remember.  The beach climate is where I am supposed to be living.  When I walked outside, I could smell the salt water and could feel the breeze in my hair.  Even though these were things I was not used to, it felt like home. 

The trip had just started and I didn’t want to waste a minute of it.  We started out in San Francisco.  This is a huge city so we able to experience Chinatown, a very hippy town, and the core of San Francisco.  The first thing I noticed was how windy it was there.  The second thing I noticed was how horrible everyone was at driving.  It felt like there were no lines on the road; everyone was just driving on top of each other.  We saw so many sites and so many different kinds of people.  Being in Chinatown was such a cultural shock.  There was a Farmer’s market on every street you turned on.  I couldn’t handle the smell of the foods they were eating, but ever native walking around couldn’t get enough. It was all sorts of dried up foods, including seafood and meat.  To me this is so foreign, but that is exactly why I love being shown new things.  It opens your eyes so much!  When I would walk into a store, I heard French, Chinese, Japanese, German and Sweden.  I have never in my life heard so many different languages.  Surprisingly, English was the minority language. 

I remember walking into the hotel near Chinatown.  From the outside, it looked old and dirty.  It was a white building surrounded by brick and steel.  When I walked inside, it was beautiful and longstanding.  It had a homey feel.  Since my sisters and I were getting too old to share a bed, my parents decided to give us our own room at each hotel on the vacation.  So naturally, every night felt like a party.  It is weird the things a person remembers, from a place.  At this hotel, I remember how soft the water made my hair, how soft the bed was, and the good sleep I got.  The next day we went shopping.  The reason this shopping experience stands out more than any other shopping day is because every store we went into was ten times bigger than any store in Ohio.  I felt like my jaw kept dropping over and over again.  We wanted to do the city right since this was the last time we would be in a city the rest of the trip.  We had a long and enjoyable day.  It was the perfect way to end our stay in San Francisco.  The last thing we did was walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.   That experience is something I’ll remember forever. 

The next city we stop in was on our way to Santa Cruz.  It was a very small, very hippy town.  All the buildings were painted with beautiful designs and lovely artwork.  The cloths were like nothing you have ever seen.  It reminded me of the town in the movie Across the Universe.  Everyone one was so joyful and pleasant.  It wasn’t just this town; all of California was incredibly nice.  We spent most of the day here.  We saw a band, shopped and just practiced a different way to live.  We still had some traveling to do, so we got back in our car in headed to Santa Cruz.

When we arrived in Santa Cruz it was night, so I could not quite get a feel of the place.  We stayed in a motel right by the beach.  I wanted to sleep as soon as I could.  As I was falling into my bed, I heard my oldest sister and my mom laughing hysterically at my dad.  This might not be a big moment for most people, but for my family that was not something you overheard every day.  They never really got along.  I was hoping this vacation would work for the best and then I thought it had.  They could me laughing at me, just as long as they were getting along 

The next morning I couldn’t get up fast enough.  I threw my bathing suit on and woke my sisters up.  I was more than ready to go to the beach.  As I walked down towards the beach, it started to hit me how pretty this town was.  The first thing I took in was the giant amusement park sitting on the beach.  There was any ride or game I could think of right at my fingertips.  A giant Farris Wheel, tons of spiny rides, a huge, old, red roller coaster and those are only to name a few.  Once the shock of that wore off some, I began to head towards the beach.  Boys were skateboarding by, teenage girls were shopping, and couples were having picnics all on the boardwalk.  It was something so unfamiliar but something that felt so right.  Once I hit the beach, it felt as if time had stopped.  It may sound dramatic, but more than true.  The sand was as white as snow.  I sunk right into it within the first step.  Once I laid my towel down and stepped into the water, I never left the beach.  I was either making a sand castle, lying out under the sun, reading, swimming in the ocean, or playing games and rides on the boardwalk.   That night we went to a great seafood restaurant.  I felt so perfectly happy.

The next day it all happened again: the beach.  It is plain and simple.  It was literally all I did.  I had to be forced to enjoy the amusement park too.  The beach was enough for me.  That night was the best of the whole vacation for me.  It had everything I love wrapped up into one day.   It started with us picking up a pizza from what we heard was the best pizza in town.  On our way back to the motel, we were just laughing and really being a family.  We had to walk fast because we were so excited to see High School Musical 2.  It may sound lame, but at the time the premiere of this movie was all my family could talk about.  Yet again, we had the perfect bon voyage to our current town. 

To end the two week California vacation, we decide last minute to head to Yosemite National Park.  Driving to Yosemite, we endured a lot.  There were quite a few ears popping and lots of gasp at the sites along the way.  It just kept going.  It is really the only way to explain it.  I thought I was as high as I could be and then we would just keep driving.  The air was cleaner and had a fresh smell.  If land can be a work of art then Yosemite was a museum.  I had never in my life seen such a pretty view.  I remember our car getting stopped by a herd of cows.  They all just stared at our car.  For some reason my sisters and I got terrified of the cows.  It didn’t hit us until after we were able to pass, how silly it was to be scared of a few cows.  We ate at probably the only restaurant in the park.  It was a real pork and beans kind of place.  I loved how homemade the food tasted.  We had a very hard time getting a hotel room that evening. For a long time we thought we were going to have to stay in our car for the night.  Luckily, the last hotel available had two rooms.  The next day we did some more site seeing.  We realized the only food accessible here was one grocery store.  We pigged out and bought enough food for the ride back to the airport.

When we were finally boarding our plane it was miserable.  I was leaving and going to miss California very much.  I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, endure a cultural shock like Chinatown, saw how people in California really shop, got plenty of sunburns from Santa Cruz,   discovered my fear of motionless cows, and life lasting laughs with my family.  They make me a better person today.  I am now open to more things.  I want to learn different cultures and see the world.  The memories from this vacation will stick with me forever.