All prompts

Week 1

Writing was never the strongest point in my schooling career. I was never creative enough to really write stories or poems and it has always been a struggle to push out five pages for a research report on something that I really could care less about. I would not say I am bad at writing, just not the best at it. I think writing is a great way to express not only yourself but also your ideas and is a staple in any learning environment.

 Since I was not the best writer in middle school, my parents thought that it would be a good idea to go and take a summer course on writing before high school. Ok great awesome sounds like a blast. Although I was not very excited about going, I tried to stay positive that it would help me in the long run. I get to class on the first day and the instructor begins to do her welcome and talk about the class. Turns out that it was not a class that helped teach writing; it was a class for kids who liked to write that wanted to get together with other kids and take a week out of their summer and write about dragons and zombies and shit. Nope, not having any of that. Although it was a miserable week with a bunch of weirdos who love to right, it did help in the long run. I did get better at writing from all the feedback and tips I had received from the class.  

Week 2

There is one word that can describe my entire career of high school writing: bullshit. I am not a good writer; I am a good bullshitter. I always liked my English teachers, but nothing they said really stuck with me. You always heard “re-read your work” or “make sure you always make outlines before papers”. I personally did not do any of those things. But one teacher really did give me advice that has stuck with me, my junior English teacher Mrs. S. Mrs. S was a wonderful lady, very nice always helpful, interesting teacher. The class was British Literature so there is that, no real complaints. The first big assignment we had was a 5-page paper on Beowulf. When the project was presented, Mrs. S said that this was not a paper you can do the night before. Being the cocky, procrastinator I am, challenge accepted. The night before the paper was due I was up till 4 A.M. completing it. Not the best idea, but I got it done. When we got the grades back, I received an 82. Ok that works for doing the whole thing the night before. After class ended, Mrs. S called me back in to talk. We had a conversation about the work and how I had messed up simple details from the book. I told her truth and she said it was disappointed and used some explicit language, which was hilarious because her young son was in the room but she didn’t realize. Her advice was to take my time when I write and to not try and bullshit papers. She said to find an aspect of the topic that interested me and try and focus that.

Week 3a

Now I hope you are confused from the title. No I did not actually kill a nice couple, but I thought that I did. It was a warm summer night when I was 12 or 13 and my friend, Matt, and I were absolutely ecstatic. Matt's older brother had just gotten back from a trip to Pennsylvania with something of ours: a shit ton of fireworks. We had Roman candles, sparklers, M-80s, mortars, etc. But the one thing that stuck out was the Veni Vidi Vici, a 30 shot mortar brick of pure fun and danger. We decided to walk down to the beach a few blocks from our houses to set it off. It was nice out so there were a few people out on the beach. And boy were they in for a show. We walked about halfway down the beach, plopped the thing down and lite it. We start backing up to get away from our masterpiece and watch it. One shot goes off in a nice green firework; the next is purple. They looked like nice fireworks you see on 4th of July; it was basically something that a small town could use for fireworks if they wanted. So instead of a nice 3rd shot goes off; we see a huge flash of light and a deafening bang. It exploded. The thing fucking exploded. I do not think we could have run any faster away. We get back to our houses and try and piece together what the fuck just happened. After about a half hour or so, we decided to walk back down to the beach to see the damage. When we got there, we were surprised at the magnitude of what happened. 3 firetrucks, 5 police cars, an ambulance and a SWAT car. I did not even know our town had a SWAT car. So we did what any two good natured kids would do and turned right around and got home as fast as we could. After a long sleepless night of guilt, we grabbed some breakfast and went back to the beach. Where our mortar brick once sat was a 4ft crater with black, charred sand all around it. We talked to one of the cops that was passing by and asked him what happened. He said two kids lite off fireworks last night and it blew up but thankfully no one was hurt. So great awesome good; no legal trouble and did not kill anyone. So we decided to not use the fireworks for awhile and not tell anyone about what happened because fuck jail.  

Week 3b

There is one word that can describe the entire epic story that is my career of high school writing: bullshit. I am not a good writer; I am a good bullshitter. I always liked my English teachers, but nothing they said really stuck with me. You always heard “re-read your work” or “make sure you always make outlines before papers”. I personally did not do any of those things. But one teacher really did give me advice that has stuck with me, my junior English teacher at Red Bank High School, Mrs. S. Mrs. S was a wonderful little Italian lady, very nice always helpful, interesting teacher. The class was British Literature so there is that, no real complaints. The first big assignment we had was a 5-page descriptive analysis on the epic poem Beowulf. When the project was presented, Mrs. S said that this was not a paper you can do the night before. Being the cocky, procrastinator I am, challenge accepted. The night before the paper was due I was up until the wee hour of 4 A.M. completing it. Not the best idea, but I got it done. When we got the grades back, I received an 82. Ok that works for doing the whole thing the night before. After class ended, Mrs. S called me back in to talk. We were the only two in the large empty classroom. We had a conversation about the work and how I had messed up simple details like misspelling Beowulf at points or confusing major character's names. I told her truth and she said she was disappointed and used some explicit language. During this talk her young son had walked over from our middle school since it was the end of the day. This was hilarious because she did not realize it. We all had a good laugh when she did see him in the room. Her advice was to take my time when I write and to not try and bullshit papers. She said to find an aspect of the topic that interested me and try and focus that.