Room 132

In the hyperactive world of after school, this leaf is your only weapon. Armed with only this and your middle school education you could fail this task easily. What is the task, you ask? Well, it’s so hard that I bet you will scream. It’s…To have fun after school with cats!

What do you get when you have two temporarily hyperactive eighth grade girls who are over at one girl’s house, with the addition of two cats? Utter DOOM! No, not really, but it does make a really big mess. Okay, here we are in a mostly pre-World War I house. The carpets are so old that they are down to bare stubble with cat hair all over and embedded in them. The tan walls that surround the carpets need to be cleaned. (They have since been cleaned, and we are getting rid of the carpet) Also, My Chemical Romance is blasting from the stereo. There are four living creatures in this house excluding the bacteria that we all have. There are two cats: Ashley, a girl, grey, tan, and white tabby, and Sylvester, a boy, a black and white tuxedo. I have another cat but she was outside and missed out on all the excitement. Then, there are two girls: I am one of them and the other is one of my best friends, named Marissa. You see, Marissa is taller than I am and a bit thinner, plus she is much more hyperactive, normally. (That is why I call her hyper-bunny. She gets really jumpy when she is having fun.)

As you can guess, we are at my house after a very long and boring day at school without the “benefit” of adult supervision. Also, the internet is not available for our use.

Walking into the kitchen, I see “it.” It has many names: cat bliss, hyper-dust, green leafy substance, and catnip. Having an idea, I ask Marissa, “Hey, do you think we should give this to the cats?” Replying with the obvious answer, Marissa responded, “Of course!” She thinks, and then Marissa remembers something, “Hey, don’t you have a digital camera that records short videos?” “I do. Let’s film them!” I exclaimed.

Grabbing the gourmet-organic bag of catnip, and then grabbing the camera, we walked over to my cat Ashley. At the time, she was looking at the refrigerator. When she does, that she is really saying, “Feed me now you pathetic mortals! I could smite you with one well-cleaned paw tied behind my back!” As you can tell by now, my cats are insane, pushy, and cute, but mostly they are insane.

Talk about multi-tasking; I pressed the power button on my family’s black-plated and silver digital camera. I think it’s a Power Shot A400 by Canon, but I am not sure.

Spilling some catnip gracefully on the badly carpeted living room floor, we waited for Ashley to follow us and to react. We didn’t have to wait all that long. My feminine feline quickly started to role around in it about five seconds after the catnip fell from its royal, plastic cup. Ashley was tossing around in the catnip like a cute little piggy in a heaven full of brown, oozing mud. Looking around the living room, I saw a long, ribbon-like cat toy with feathers on the end. Thrusting the camera into Marissa’s hands, I grabbed the cat toy and started to dangle it in front of Ashley’s furry little face.

From the side lines, our boy-cat Sylvester watched and eagerly waited for his chance for some of the cat-related amusement. Of course, he was originally clueless as to what was making Ashley act so excitable and hyperactive. Giving Marissa the cat toy, I then used the camera to film what was happening. I even made it look like an earthquake was happening by shakings the digital camera for my own personal amusement.

Next thing I knew, Marissa was arguing with Ashley and shouting, “Grrrrr, give it to me!” “Its mine!” and of course going into maniacal laughter whenever she stole the feathery cat toy from the cat.

By now Sylvester had figured out what all the excitement as about. It did not help his situation that he fell by tripping over his own paws face first into the catnip cup. Cracking up at this, Marissa nearly fell over. Helping Sylvester to his little paws, I dusted him off.

So, Sylvester sneaks up very obviously, and pounce! He goes at the cat toy and misses completely. Of course being the dumb cute boy cat he is he runs into a wall, so he tries again. Finally after something like 9 tries he grabs the toy. It dangles in his mouth proudly. Ashley chases after Sly to see if she can steal the toy back and boy does she have a right to be mad, he’s faster than her. Laughing, Marissa and I leave the cats to their devices.

Looking back I remember how funny this was at the time. The time crunch we had, I thought this was pretty fun. I look back and I see how random I was being. So, to me, this is humorous, because I usually don’t go around my house doing this kind of stuff. I have known Marissa for over a year now. We go over to each others houses a lot and mess around on the inter net. Due to the internet not working we needed something else to do and that’s how this came about.

The sound of what should have been the ambulance was the sound of people crying. The ambulance never showed up. No one knew where the ambulance was but all we knew was that there was a man and he needed help. I have had many other memories of people dieing, mostly family members though. One memory that I have is when my cousin Adam was killed. One day my family and I got a phone call that said that he had committed suicide on the top of his apartment building by hanging himself. Later that year my family and I got another phone call from my grandma saying that Adams sister Niva was found dead in her apartment building, they think that she OD on some pills. Now Adam and Nivas mom is very depressed and I don’t get to see her that much because she’s so sad. Both of those incidents were amazingly scaring for me they are like tattoos in my brain but here is one that I thought was really scary that happened when I was around six years old and my sister was around eight or nine years old.

It all started on a nice sunny day. It looked like that one episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward all make their way up on to land. That episode looked like this day in a sense that it was so sunny, with clear blue skies and crystal clear water. Anyways my family and I were walking along the beach and were watching the Jet skiers go by. This one dude on a jet ski was going crazy. All of a sudden he and his jet ski went flying about fifteen feet in the air. The man went soaring into the air and then quickly under water. After five minutes of him being under water and not coming back up the lifeguards sent out to rescue him in their motor boat. The motor boat came in quickly onto the shore. The jet skier was quickly surrounded by paramedics. While all of this was going down my whole family and I were about twenty feet away from the unconscious man who is gushing blood all over. Blood was coming out of his mouth like crazy, he was like a sink that was turned on, the blood just kept flowing everywhere out of his body. I couldn’t even start to imagine if this man was still alive what he was thinking and what excruciating pain he must be in. We heard the paramedics say that he needed to get to a hospital quickly. The jet skier was still laying there lifeless. The bleeding had slowed down. People had started to clear off the beach, but many were still there watching this terrible scene take place.

The ambulance showed up on the beach a long four hours later. The new paramedics hopped out of the ambulance and quickly rushed over to the lifeless jet skier. They were too late to save him. I was in a state of shock of what I had just seen in front of my very own eyes. I wanted it all to be a dream and wake up from it right then.

Later I found out that the man had fallen off of his jet ski and slammed his head into a coral reef. He had cracked open his head and broken a lot of bones. He messed up his body really badly. This accident is now a memory inside of my head, it’s like a tattoo engraved into my brain. That tattoo will never come off, it’s stuck in my head forever, and I will never forget it.

After we had left the beach then we went to our hotel and my parents talked to my sister and I about what had just happened. They told both of us that the man was dead and that he was then going off to a better place. They also explained to us what really had just happened and that we weren’t ever going to talk about that incident anymore. My sister and I asked them a few questions on what happened to them because being a little kid at my age which I was around seven years old or so, I didn’t really know what’s going on is all that I saw was this man who was bleeding all over and I was told that I wasn’t aloud to go in the water anymore which at my age is a big deal not to be able to play in the water. Both my sister and I were pretty shook up from the incident. The rest of our trip was happy no more bloody bodies just nice villages and nice safe places. We stayed in Puerto Rico for another five to six days. We had many more fun adventures and exciting trips to different places. This trip has changed the way that I think about life and death. It has helped me realize that life is a very short thing and that every day we all wake up and can open our eyes and brush our teeth and walk to the bus, and when we are all playing sports or doing anything that involves moving we take it for granted every time. We never think about how fortunate we are for being able to talk, play and even eat on our own.

The channels quickly changed, as I flipped through the channels, not even watching what was on. On the floor my dad, Lou was laying on our big, light green beanbag strumming his acoustic along to a tune in his head. Pretty soon he switched to reading the news paper. After about five to ten minutes, he turned to me and asked, “Dylan, would you like to go to this concert, as your birthday present from me?” He held the news paper up to my face with his finger pointing at a black and white picture, in the bottom right corner. In bold white letters it read, Anger Managment Tour 3, tickets soon on sail. Above the lettering, it featured Eminem, Lil’ Jon, and 50 Cent (rappers), and a couple music icons. As soon as I was done registering what he had just asked, I was filled with joy.

I jumped up and shouted, “Yes!” Which was quickly followed by hundreds of thanks you’s and I love you’s.

“Alright then,” he said, “but I’ll hae to check with Jennifer to see if it’s alright to go.” While those words rolled off of his tongue the joy suddenly vanished. I was dreading my mom’s final descision. This went on for a few days, because my dad kept “forgetting” to ask her. Finally, he did. She swiveed her chair back towards her desk and checked her calender and said it would be fine, but that she warned against it because I had a basketball camp to go to, the day after the concert night. Of course that didn’t stop me, I instantly said yes without so much as a second thought. A few days later we finally bought the heartily awaited for tickets.

Roughly a month or two after that day, it was the day before the concert. I stayed up late that night making mix cd’s for the car ride there.

Light filled my eyes, as i opened them. I glanced at the clock, it was a few after noon. I’m still amazed I didn’t have a seizure then my heart was beating so hard I could feel the pounding in my chest. I ran down the stairs, with my pants bairly on all the way. I searched for my parents…nothing. I dashed to the kitchen where I found a note laying on the counter telling me that my parents would be back from their brunch soon, and that I had slept to late so I missed it. And here I was expecting some big “concert day” breakfast. Grudgingly I poured some Rice Krispies into a glass bowl, then came some two percent milk, the usual. A warm feeling filled me as I took the first bite, and heard the snapping, crackling, and popping of my cereal. Eventually my parents came home and said my sister, Tess, was at a friends house for the majority of the day, and that my mother and her would most likely go out to eat, and rent a movie. I said that was fine, and that it didn’t really seem like I’d miss much action. Around four thirty my dad and I hopped in the car, we would have left later except it was a long drive and we were planning to get dinner on the way there. We had just passed federal way then my dad took a turn.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“You’ll see soon,” he answered back. He pulled into a store parking lot. I read a sign saying Gen-X. Weird I thought. However once I stepped inside my views totally changed, it was huge. Unfortunately neither of us had any spare money so I didn’t but anything. So we exited the building. Instead of getting in the car we just crossed the street and walked into McDonalds. You could smell the oil that the foods were being fried in, and see the workers in the back. Both me and my dad got three bugers and a large fries. We ate in the car. We devoured the devilishly good food in instants, no matter how unhealthy it may have been. We parked then entered the amphitheater, it was amazing. There were so many people covering the area. We didn’t have much time till it started so we bussled to our seats in the middle. The featured artists stepped up to the stage, The first act was Lil’ Jon, then 50 Cent and G-Unit, Then finished with Eminem. The sets for all of the arists we’re amazing. For Lil’ Jon’s, it was a bigger him moving around. For 50 Cent, and G-Unit’s it was a big burnt down Ney York, with all sorts of trap doors. Lastly, for Eminem’s it was a big hallway of doors that had different thing in each. We left one song early to avoid crowd traffic. The ride home was a slow one. So I popped in my mix i had made for the ride. After that it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep. My eyes opened just as we returned home. I stepped into the door that evening, a very satisfied guy.

It was a pleasant summer afternoon – not too hot, not too cold. My friend, Antonio, and I were playing a small game somewhat like tag in my backyard, which is about 10 yards wide. Antonio was “it”, and I had to get from one side to the other without him tagging me. The fence I started from was chain link; the other fence was wooden. I started to run across, I got by Antonio, and started to sprint. But I was too fast for the space. I stuck out my arms to stop me from hitting the fence. Then there was a snapping noise. It wasn’t the fence. My neighbor across the street and three houses down heard me scream from her front yard.

I went inside the house and to my room to ice my arm for a while. My friend Antonio, stayed at my house for about an hour, until I fell asleep and my parents sent him home; he was still hoping I’d feel better and be ready to play more.

Then, to make matters worse, the next day my mom sent me to school with a broken arm. My teacher called my mom and talked to her about how she thought I should be going home and probably to see the doctor, because I was having a hard time at school. Mom came and picked me up, then my parents took me to the emergency room, where I got a cast on my arm. Ten weeks later, I got the cast off. My left arm was a little smaller than my right, but healed.

The next story is in 2001.

My friend, Olin, and I and Olin’s dad are walking out of a movie theatre, the Cinerama after seeing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. We got into Dean’s (Olin’s dad’s) black Accura SUV and headed Olin’s house where my parents would pick me up later. On the way back, Olin and I were fighting over the middle seat playfully, because it was really cold outside and those were the only heaters in the backseat. There was an armrest in the car; we had the armrest down, leaving a large open area from where the armrest folded out. Olin got his whole body underneath the lowered armrest (closer to the heater) and pushed up using his back, while at the same time I had my arm pressing down on the top of the armrest in order to keep Olin down, so as to try to make him surrender. But this went very wrong, as my arm was forced up into one of the corners of the armrest dock. I pushed down with my arm, at the same time that he pushed up with his back, and his back was too powerful for my arm, causing my arm to break. On the way back, we didn’t know that the arm was broken, only that I was in a lot of pain. I could feel it; they could hear me. Olin’s dad asked if there was anything he could do, besides keep the car on the road. Since on the way over, I had just been introduced to the Monkees, sobbing, I said ‘yes, you can play the Monkees.’ So we drove back to my house with me sobbing and singing along to “Hey Hey We’re The Monkeys.” Dean had already figured out that I needed to go straight home, skipping the playing-at-Olin’s part of the evening.

Later that night, I was taken to the emergency room once again. Once again, my left forearm was broken. This time, I got my arm in a sling for two weeks, through Thanksgiving. A week after Thanksgiving, they put a cast on. But first, the doctor had to take x-rays of the arm. He said my arm hadn’t been broken, it had just been “bent” like a cardboard toilet paper roll. I had to have the cast on for the same amount of time, 10 weeks, through my birthday, which was NOT one of the highlights, and through Christmas, another non-highlight. After the brutal 10 weeks were up, we got the cast off. Once again, my left arm was a little bit smaller than my right arm, but it was healed.

The next time I saw Olin, he apologized and I said that it wasn’t anything to worry about because we were just playing around, and it just happened – it wasn’t his fault.

So now you know about my two broken arms in three years. I’m a lot more careful now, because I know how much it hurts and how long it takes to fix, so I try not to hurt myself or let anyone else hurt me. I still run hard, wrestle with my friends in cars, but now I try to avoid armrest battles and running into fences.

Another report from Room 132.

Coming soon: Skate King footage and the mouths of Room 132 speak!

The theme of my book is friendship. The theme of this book is represented in many different ways. Friendship is represented as a love hate thing because there are so many boyfriends and girlfriends in the book. I noticed this because John and Billy Beezer always walked about their girlfriends who they liked.
Many issues of friendship come up in this book by how everyone talks about boyfriends and girlfriends. There is also a lot of writing about how the kids like John and Gloria are always arguing about things. John thinks a lot about his friends like Billy, he thinks of them not only as friends but as objects.
This book relates to my life in a way the I have friends to, but other than that this book doesn’t relate to my life at all. I don’t have much drama in my life and in this book there is a whole ton of drama. Also I don’t think of a table as a different thing but as just as a table, where as John thinks of a table as another object or feeling.
Overall I didn’t like this book because it made me think to much. When I read books, which isn’t very often I don’t like to have to think to understand it. Also I don’t really like dark mean depressing books, which this was. Basically I like happy books that are easy to read which this book wasn’t.

My Dog Cozmo

“Come on Cozmo, go get it.” I hucked his new green tennis ball far away, Cozmo running after it. Bringing it back to me I throw it again. Repeatedly, my hyper black lab brought the ball back as if I hadn’t even thrown it yet. As I hucked it, this time it went farther than ever. I see Cozmo running after it, like a blot of lightning. The way he gracefully runs for the ball, his black hair shining from the reflection of the sun. Looking at the ball hovering in the sky I wonder how life would be like if I never got Cozmo. All the work I had to do to get him, all the time I spent on research.
Every year on my Christmas List the first thing on it says, 1. A Dog. I don’t know why I love dogs so much, it’s probably just how they each have their own personalities and are all different from one another. I never really confronted my parents about actually getting/adopting a dog but on that day, around 3 years ago, I got the courage to do so. It was a Saturday, the sun was out and my parents were sitting at our dining room table, reading the newspaper.
“Dad,” I said hesitantly, “I was wondering if we could get a dog?” By knowing my dad, he would of said no immediately, but I still wanted to make sure, just in case.
“I don’t know, a dog is a huge responsibility.” Harvey was still reading the newspaper, and had made no eye contact. Another thing my dad is good at is ignoring you. To make sure he’s giving you his absolute attention, you have to get eye contact with him. And I could see that he still wasn’t even looking at me. It made me feel that my feelings and opinions were less important than who won the last baseball game.
“Gosh, why don’t you ever listen to me!”
“Okay, I’ll give it some thought. If you do these three things I might consider letting you get a dog. I want you to learn about dogs in general, you have to also research a specific breed that you want, and you have to learn the essential needs and how to care for it.” It was the middle of fifth grade, 2002, and our whole class had to go to the library because it was Wednesday. Our library wasn’t the nicest thing in the world. If you’d try to whisper, it was easy to be overheard by others because the bookshelves were so short. That day I was reading a book on dogs at one of the blue, long reading tables and my good friend Alice came over. Alice was a great friend, and was an expert at dogs. Just by looking at any dog, she could name what breed they were. Even if it was a mutt, a mix of a lot of different breeds, she could tell what they were.
I started talking to her about my situation. She seemed glad to help, so for the next 3 weeks she helped me learn everything possible on Labrador retrievers. One of the first grade teachers was in a wheel chair and she had a guide dog named Brianna. And this was perfect because Brianna was a black lab. And almost every lunch, we would go into Ms. Adams room and eat lunch with Brianna. I was so relieved that she could help me, because seriously, I needed all the information I could find.
It was around 3 weeks later, and once again it was Saturday, both of my parents at the dining room table. I showed him about 20 papers on facts about dogs, the care they need, and everything else I could dig up. He was very impressed with my research, and I was like yes this is it, this could be it! But I guess my research wasn’t enough. So he said if I puppy proof and clean the house, we’ll definitely go to the shelter and look for a dog. Which is exactly what I did. I had to vacuum every room in our house, I wrapped all the loose cable with twisty ties, I scrubbed the kitchen cabinets, I did almost everything possible you could do to clean a house. When I came back and told him everything, and showed him the clean couches, and the sparkly windows, he was amazed. He then repeated this annoying habit. If you do this, this, and this we’ll go get a dog. I was so determined to get a dog I would do exactly what he said. Then same old, same old, he would give me one more thing to add to my to-do list. My list just kept on getting longer and longer. He kept on promising me a dog, but did we ever get it “tomorrow” or “next weekend”? no, he didn’t keep his promises.
It was around August when my mother finally got the hint about what was going on. My dad had given me so many things to do, I was doing something every minute of every day. It was a cool morning, it had rained earlier, so the dew on the grass was glistening. My father was at my grandparent’s house in Woodinville and I was home with my brother and my mom.
“Come on you guys, get in the car.” My brother and I didn’t know exactly where we were going because our mom wouldn’t tell us. So we just sat in the car, patiently watching Anger Management on the DVD screen in our car.
30 minutes later we finally drove up a driveway that connected to a medium sized house around an acre of grass. The house belonged the Mary H. Hallowell. She was a breeder, and she had one black lab puppy left from her recent litter. Now I finally figured out what was going on. My mom had taken my brother and I to go get a dog.

Previously, my dad, my mother and I had visited shelters, probably around 20 of them. But every time I found a dog we could save, like this one German shepherd dog, he said, “No, I don’t like this one, it barked at me!” But clearly all the dogs were barking at everyone because they wanted to see all the people outside their gloomy, dull cages.
As we waited in the meeting room Mary had left to get the mother of the puppy, a chocolate lab. I looked around the room; there were hundreds of pictures of labs next to hunters, or labs pointing. There were certificates framed on the walls which all had to do with hunting. Clearly these were also bred for hunting dogs.
As she brought out the mom, she seemed so hyper; her tail was wagging so fast, it looked like a blur. Mary was telling us that the funny thing was, the puppy’s mom was a chocolate lab, his dad was a yellow lab, but he turned out to be a black lab. I felt very bad because we couldn’t take her home to, and it was like we were taking her baby. Mary had went back and put the mom back in her kennel/run and then came back with what looked like to be a ball of fluff. That was him, he was the cutest puppy I have ever seen. He was black and a little bit smaller than a loaf of bread. He came walking into the room as if he owned it himself, he ran around smelling us and the room itself. He probably might have not been in this room before because he was the last puppy of the litter, but I wasn’t sure if he was the runt. He had a sort of “strut”, like a funny way of walking that made him more adorable then ever!
As my mom signed the papers while my brother and I took him outside into the field to play. The grass was nice and green, but the only problem was, was that there were all of these dandelions everywhere and the puppy kept on trying to eat them. So we had to improvise and stick our hands in his mouth to get the entire flower out. As we got into the car, Mary placed the new puppy on my lap, before I new it he was fast asleep. His head was resting on my hand and his tail fell smoothly off my leg and onto the car seat. I felt like saying hey, he’s mine; this cute adorable puppy is mine. Do you know how much work I had to do to get him? I am responsible for him now; he’ll be there for me for a very long time. I felt like shouting that to the world.
The roads weren’t to icy but earlier in the morning it had been slippery, so as we were driving on the free way the car in front of us had lost the spare tire that it usually kept on the back of the truck. The tire came flying off and my mom had to dodge the wheel. Luckily it didn’t hit us, but it woke the puppy up.
Since then he never really did like cars much. Whenever we tried to take him to the dog park it takes him a while to get into the car. He takes his time and hesitantly goes into the car. It might also be because he gets car sick, but my family and I aren’t positively sure.
Cozmo came running back, ball in mouth. Back from a daydream, Cozmo back from chasing the ball I go up to him and give him a big hug. I don’t think life wouldn’t have been as much fun as today has. I wouldn’t have such a rollercoaster life if it weren’t for you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just me and him, throwing the ball back and forth, all day.

On Wednesday after school, I walked heavily down the empty street with my lowered, hoping to find money like my brother does when he walks home from school with his head down. Slowly, I passed by Steven’s Barbershop and started to go down hill. Cold winds blew hard on my face and froze my nose. I felt like an actress in a lonely movie while covering my nose and looked across the view of mountains and Lake Washington. Cars drove by, but only one brought color to my life theater. It was my mother’s car so I opened the door and jumped in, only then I realizing that my sister was there too. My first word for them was, “Wow!”
“What are you guys doing here?” I said.
“Well, first we went to Costco,” my sister replied, “but we figure that mom forgot her wallet, so we came back to get it. Anyways, do you want to come with us or what?”
I said yes, so when we got home, I ran into the house and got my mother’s wallet and dropped off my backpack. Then I ran back to the car and we went to Costco. For the next two to three hours, we were shopping like crazy to get all the things on the list for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was funny, that people wrote “Happy Turkey Day” everywhere, but there was no turkey on our list. I do not like turkeys and a turkey would be too big, so we would have chicken instead. It was our first Thanksgiving because since we moved to Seattle from Taiwan, we had never celebrated Thanksgiving at our home; we hade always been invited to other people’ houses. After shopping then cooking and cleaning all night, I went to bed and hoped that our first Thanksgiving would be okay.
I awakened in a dark warm space, with something like wind blowing on my shoulder: my mother had flipped the comforter back as she got out of the bed. I opened my eyes and it was still dark. I jumped off my bed and started cleaning the house like yesterday. The halls, the living room, the dinning room, the bedrooms, and the kitchen: all these places I had to clean. After cleaning, I helped my mother cook. I chopped carrots, boiled eggs, made salads, and opened cans for a delicious soup, all the fun things I got to do.
The rest of the morning I played card games with my sister and her friends. For an hour or two, I won all the games I played; it was one of my best card-playing experiences. We played “Do-Me-Ra-Me” a card game that my sister’s friend taught her. It was my favorite game. “Hey, Kids, come up and help me cook!” my mother commands, so we followed the order. We had prepared fruits, desserts, main courses and snacks, including all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes but no turkey. By the time we finished cooking, it was already four o’clock in the afternoon, the time when other guests were suppose to come. Some people came, but some were late so we had to wait for them. When everyone finally got there, they seemed to be very hungry.
Dinner time was the most exciting moment that I had been waiting for all day, but there was almost no conversation and no interaction between people. It left me feelinf very disappointed. Most of the dinner parties that my family was invited to were usually very charming, and even though people are eating, the adults would still talk very loudly on the table, while all the kids would be rough-housing on the side. But our own Thanksgiving dinner seemed to me was only silence and food. I tried to tell jokes but no one seemed to get them, I hoped some one can start talking, but perhaps they were just too hungry.
Free time should be fun, but it was not the way I expected it to be either. In the living room, where all the kids gathered around was somehow not in one group, but in three different clubs: a computer club, chess club and a cards club. I felt odd being in the same room with seven other kids without much talking; only playing. It was like the scene during dinner, but this time everyone was doing something different; there were not many things to say. I hoped that all this silence was only my imagination.
Soon, the kids broke up for dessert and fruit: cheese cake, strawberries, apples, oranges and ice cream, it was all my favorites. The adults seemed to have more conversation, and the clubs were disbanded. It turned out that the dessert time was the best.
After the guests were gone, I went upstairs and helped mom cleaning up the kitchen and the dinning room. Looking at the left-over food, I lied to myself that this was the best dinner party ever. After they were gone; I wished they could stay longer. Empty halls, and darken rooms made me felt a little bit cold inside. But somehow I had a strange feeling that Thanksgiving was not over: my sister’s friends were staying the night and we had card games to play, except my wining road was over. Since then I have had the feeling that we will have a better one. Hey! We did fine for our first Thanksgiving right?

Darth Vader had just told Luke that he was his father when the fresh stench of cow pie entered the car. We are truly now in farm country. My whole family was crunched in our car waiting to arrive at my aunt Joys house. She lived in Boardman Oregon. We were going there for the Fourth of July. An interesting fourth of July.
It was a beautiful sunny day. My cousins Corey and Kristy and Kristy’s parents came down too. We all met at a nice little cafe. Since it was such a gorgeous day all of us decided that it would be nice to go for a skate around the park. Then we all got out our skates and went on this beautiful trail along the coast. It was a lot of fun because I never go for a skate with my family. We whisked by the ocean water with a gust of wind coming our way that misted on my face feeling so good for a hot sweaty day. My brother Brad does not skate or ride bikes so he was running with us. It was really funny because he got so hot and he took off his shirt and being as pale as he is when my cousin Lee came by he slapped him on the back he left a hand print that seemed to last forever. After a while we started getting tired so we decided to just take one last trail. I thought is was going to be a short one but…well…
I was going up and down and up and down this very dizzy hilly trail. My dog Katie was running alongside me as I was going up and down and up and down. Until she started running in-front of me going from the left to the right. Up and down. Left and right. Up and down. Left and right. My skates were shaking with fear. I was getting annoyed, dizzy I just needed to stop. but I cant. Threes no way that I’m going to just skid my foot across the pavement. I would fall flat on my face. I needed a secure way. Or at least what I thought was secure.
I tried to slow down as best I could by not taking anymore strokes but it wasn’t enough. I needed to stop and I needed to do it now. As slowly and carefully as I could I fell off on to the grass but unfortunately I landed all of my weight on my arm. The pain was enormous. I could feel it tingling all the way up my arm.
My brother Brad quickly ran over as he saw the tears running down my face. He quickly held my head up and talked to me to see what was wrong. “My arm Brad its my arm. it hurts!!!” It felt so good to know that my brother cared. We normally just fought.
Kristy’s dad Bill saw what happened and took me into his car. He felt around my wrist and new it needed to be held up by something. So he found two sticks from the ground and put them on the two sides of my wrist. Then to keep them from rubbing he took two rubber gloves to put between the twigs and my wrist and finally put duck tape all over to keep it together. After a while my hand started to swell. We were just coming back to the little café and I started to cry because it was swelling so much I couldn’t feel my fingers. It hurt so bad! I thought it was going to fall off. Was it broken?
Later that day we went to a fair. For a small community this fair had everything. Elephant ears, scamed games and the usual weird guys roaming around. We also saw a fireman showing his truck. My arm hurt so much that we asked him to look at it. He told us that it looked so bad that we should go to the hospital.
We ended up waiting for 3 hours in the ER. When we finally got in the doctor there showed me a bed to lie down in and gave me a nice warm blanket. I looked up to see all of these tools and weird wires. They were staring at me saying “I want to eat you.” It was so freaky. Then a nurse took about three x-rays. It was kind of funny because right before she gave me x-rays she asked me if I was pregnant. I was only 11.
When I was finally done I looked out the window to see that my dad was sitting in a lawn chair in the parking lot. And even worse he was sleeping! I know it was a nice day and the grass in the parking lot was perfectly green but why did he sleep? It was so embarrassing. I was so glad that I was in a different state. At least he didn’t have his swimsuit on.
As soon as I got back home the doctor made me put on a cast witch I thought was so cool. I even got to picture my own color. And I chose purple.
Looking back on this I realized that this is how I met my best friend. We both went to a 6D camp. One girl there had a purple cast on her leg and I had a purple cast on my arm. We couldn’t do a lot of the activities so we sat out together. That was about 2 years ago and we are still best friends to this day.
So in a way I guess I’m happy. Even though I had to go through all of that pain and embarrassment if I hadn’t then I would have never met my best friend Julie.

“Do you wants to go shopping?” my mom said loudly across the room. It was one of the fall days in Japan. It was one of those days where it doesn’t get dark early in the day. I was in the 3rd Grade in Japan. My mom and I just had an argument, which my mom won, but I was still mad. My mom asked me again, “this is last time I’m asking you. Do you want to go shopping or not?” I gave her no answer. Then a minute later, I heard the door shut. I looked up. My mom, brother and sister were gone off to the shopping. I looked at the clock. It was 4 o’clock. Now that I’m in 8th and I think back, I wish I gone with her. Then this would have never happened.

Few hours passed. I looked at the clock again. It was 6:30. I started to get worried. “Why isn’t my mom home yet?” Then question after question starts coming to my head. At that time, mom didn’t have the driver’s license yet. I knew where she went to shop. I also knew that she went with the bicycle. And I knew how to get there. I decided that I go to the store and look for her.

I took the house key. Our apartment had three keys. Each parent had one key each. Another one which I took was all ways the key that no one used. I went out side and lock the door, and put the key in my pocket. I wish I didn’t put the key in my pocket. It was dumb choice. Then I took out my bicycle. The sky was turning red. I knew I had to hurry. I jumped one to my bicycle. It was rusted from the rain and my poor ability to take care of it. I start to go faster and faster every second. I knew I could catch on to my mom. My heart was racing. My mind was also racing faster than I was moving.

Once I got to the store I looked for her in every level. But there was no trace of her in the store. I even looked in few different stores that were near the store my mom usually went to. I had no luck. I even tried the bigger store that my mom doesn’t usually go to because it expensive. However, my luck was dying. I then come up with the idea that my mom might already be coming home. I knew I had to be right.

I rode on the bicycle again, but this time more cheerfully. I knew I could catch up with mom. When it was about half way to the home, I found her. She was surprised. “How did you get here? How did you lock the door at the house?” That was the first thing she said to me. I told her quick version of what I did. She understood me. We went to home together.

When we got home, mom told me to open the house door for her so she could bring the item she shopped quicker. So I took my brother and sister and stepped in front of the house. I put my hand on the pocket expecting that I will feel the cold metal. My hand did not touch the metal. My key was not there. I put my hand in every single pocket I had. It was just not there any more. My heart felt like it just turned into ice. My brother asked me, “What are you doing?” I said nothing. I just turned away from him. In my heart, I knew I couldn’t keep it secret for long time. Especially when I sucked at keeping any secret. But I knew if my mom found out, she going to blow another volcano. I didn’t want to start another fight. When my mom come up to my room, she asked why I’m standing out side the door, but I just pretended and said that I was waiting until she got there. How ever when we entered the house, Mom asked me for the key. So I couldn’t hide it any more and I told her that I lost the key. Instead of getting mad, my mom just called the every store I went to ask if they found the key. We didn’t have any luck.

One week finally passed after I lost my house’s house key. To me it felt like it was million years. On one clear morning, I was going to go play with my bicycle; I saw a metal under my bicycle. I picked it up and scraped off the dirt. My heart was pumping so fast that I didn’t know if I was alive. I could never forget the feeling I had when I found it. It feels like you get the greatest gift in the world at the world below you. It was dirty but I knew what it was. It was my house’s key that I had lost one week ago.

Even thought I’m in 8th grade right now, I could remember the feeling when I put my hand in to the pocket and found the house key missing. First I thought of making a memoir just beginning at the part where I lost the key but I decided to put what happened before on my memoir. Now that I’m smarter, I think that I found the key under the bicycle because when I rode on the bicycle key could have slid off.

Lit Circle Assignment:
Part 1: Each person will write a 1 page typed book response.
Book Response Criteria: Include one paragraph each on the theme, friendship in the book, and how the book relates to your life.

Part 2: Each group will make a piece of pixel art related to their book. You must have a plan for it by the end of the period on Tuesday.

Part 3: Act out a scene from your book in front of the class. Should be approximately 3-5 minutes long. Friday is presentation day except for Ahmed and Alex who will perform on Wednesday because Alex will be leaving on Thursday.

Weekly Agenda
Monday
Journal Prompt: Now that you have finished your book, what will happen to your characters? What jobs do you think they will have when they grow up. Back your predictions up with some rational.
Lit Circle: Discuss the end of the book and figure out what kind of art project you will do and describe the scene you are going to act out. Write your ideas down on a piece of paper to turn in.
Homework: Final edit of your memoir due on Thursday.

Tuesday
Journal Prompt: Describe the place where your scene is going to be acted out.
Classwork: Begin work on art project and write the script for your scene.
Homework for LC assignment to be decided by groups based on need to get things done by Friday.
Get your reading logs signed!

Wednesday
Journal Prompt: If you have not finished your one page book response, write it in your journal. If you have completed it, then free-write.
Classwork: project worktime
Alex and Ahmed’s presentation at 8:50.
Homework: Final edit of memoir due tomorrow. Post to the blog for 5 points ec.

Thursday
Journal Prompt: Write a journal entry as a character in your lit circle book.
Classwork: Rehearsal and finish art project.
Homework: practice your lines for your presentation tomorrow finish artwork and type up book response.

Friday:
Presentations, turn in artwork and book response.

Coming Next Week: Gift Writing.

Sometimes instructional grammar books aren’t as helpful as seeing a good example. Many of my students have problems with the technical details of writing dialogue. My sweetheart Jennifer found this great excerpt at Amazon.com to demonstrate dialogue. Can you tell what the rules of dialogue are? (Note: I can’t format indents in this blog.)

Excerpt from Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Mae sat there frowning, a great potato of a woman with a round, sensible face and calm brown eyes. “It’s no use having that dream,” she said. “Nothing’s going to change.”
“You tell me that every day,” said Tuck, turning away from her onto her side. “Anyways, I can’t help what I dream.”
“Maybe not,” said Mae. But, all the same, you should have got used to things by now.”
Tuck groaned. “I’m going back to sleep,” he said.
“Not me,” said Mae. “I’m going to take the horse and go down to the wood to meet them.”
“Meet who?”
“The boys, Tuck! Our sons. I’m going to ride down to meet them.”
“Better not do that,” said Tuck.
“I know,” said Mae, “but I just can’t wait to see them. Anyways, it’s ten years since I went to Treegap. No one’ll remember me. I’ll ride in at sunset, just to the wood. I won’t go into the village. But, even if someone did see me, they won’t remember. They never did before, now, did they?”
“Suit yourself, then,” said Tuck into his pillow. “I’m going back to sleep.”
Mae Tuck climbed out of bed and began to dress: three petticoats, a rusty brown skirt
Page 10

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Watch a slideshow of all the pixel projects!