Dark Blue Van 2

The dark blue van was beat up and dirty, “Just Like Heaven” was blaring, and her little fingers were tapping on the window to the beat. She missed a few beats, but that was expected of a young girl.

“Today I went to Sarah’s house while I was waiting for you to pick me up mom!”

Distracted, but suddenly aware, Mom answered, “Oh really?”

“Yeah! And she has a little garbage can, but it’s not really a garbage can, it is full of candy!”

No response.

She couldn’t reach the button to roll down the window without grabbing the back of Mom’s chair and pulling herself forward. She pulled herself up and Mom yelled at her “Don’t touch my seat!” The girl ignored her and rolled down the window anyways.

The drive home from school is short; drive past Sarah’s house, then Clark Park, turn right, turn left, turn right, go up the hill and then home. The hill was huge to her at the time, but to older people it was small. Clark Park was her favorite place to go, the 4th of July parade was there, and you could see the fireworks from the country club perfectly.

The van pulled into the driveway and the girl ran into the garage, brother was inside playing video games. The garage was set up as movie room with couches, blankets, and mountains of junk food. She ran into the house and found the dog, Mom called it the damned dog. She repeated that once to a friend and Mom made her wash her mouth out with soap. Mom came into the house, went to her room and closed the door. Sister came home from school with a friend. Her friend always wore long sleeves, even in the summer. The girl always looked up to her, she was gorgeous and perfect. She overheard Mom and sister talking about it one day and heard that one of her arms was missing. She assumed a shark had bitten it off, she saw that happen to people on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week on T.V.

She finished her pretend homework that every young child is given in grade school. She wanted to wait up for Dad, but Mom made her go to bed.

The next day Mom was there to pick her up right after school got out. She didn’t get to go to Sarah’s house that day.

Mom took her to Clark Park to play with brother and his friends. She didn’t want to play there, she wanted to play with Sarah’s family. She asked why she couldn’t play with Sarah’s family anymore, and mom ignored her question.

Dad didn’t come home that night. He was working late.

She saw Mom and Dad having a conversation later that month. Mom was crying and Dad had a look of disappointment. He pressed all five of his fingers into the top of his forehead and massaged his temple with his thumb. He did this when he was stressed or angry, he sighed a lot too.

At church, everyone looked at her family with glancing eyes. She could hear the whispers from familiar faces, and feel them judging her and her family. Mom wouldn’t let her talk to Sarah after church anymore. She asked why. Mom answered. She didn’t understand the answer, so she asked again.

She asked again every day, and got the same answer every day.

After school Mom was late, for the first time in months. She was bored so she walked to Sarah’s house. Sarah hugged her, kissed her, and took her to the little garbage can filled with candy. She took some candy and went to play Polly Pockets with Sarah’s daughter. Going to Sarah’s was her favorite thing. She stayed there for thirty minutes, and decided she should probably leave.

She went back to the school and waited for mom to pick her up. She was really late that day. When Mom finally got there she felt guilty because she had gone to Sarah’s even though Mom had made it clear that she didn’t want her to. Mom didn’t seem focused, she was distant and sad. Mom was driving home, past Clark Park, but in her mind she was driving through darkness.

She was old enough to care about Mom and want to help her, but she was too young to formulate the question in an appropriate manner.

“Why is there a tear on your face?” She blurted

She asked in a way that made the car feel awkward, as if all the air was sucked out. Mom could feel it, but the girl couldn’t. She was too little to feel things like that.

Mom wiped it away and said she would tell her later.

That night at dinner Mom told them she was pregnant. Sister was annoyed, that would be her fourth sibling, she didn’t want to be a huge annoying family, like the ones at church with seven kids. Dad wasn’t surprised, and he didn’t talk much that dinner. In fact, he hadn’t talked much at any dinner recently.

The next Sunday at church the girl felt the same eyes and whispers, she had felt them for over a month now. And she knew why. After church everyone gathered in the foyer to talk, half went to Sarah’s side and the other half came to her family’s side.

A couple more weeks went by, with awkward interactions, and an underwhelming presence of Mom and Dad. The little girl got sick of staying at her friends’ houses all day everyday. She wanted to be with her family more.

It was that time right before spring, the hardest time; everyone is sick of winter, and waiting for spring to bring everything good back. Random snow showers came and went, along with some beloved warm days. Warm being a low 45 degrees of course. Usually the warm days would bring a sense of happiness and hope into the house, but not this year. The winter was still lingering at home.

After church one Sunday, with the flock of people split into two, the girl walked up to Sarah. She was so pretty in her sunflower dress, the girl tugged at the hem of the dress. All eyes turned to her and watched. She looked up at Sarah and said, “I know why my family can’t play with your family anymore.”

She captured the attention of people on both sides of the foyer. People gasped and fidgeted with horrified looks on their faces.

Sarah’s face was even more horrified than everyone elses, she tried to conceal it but she couldn’t. She was about to be completely humiliated in front of a hundred people by a little girl.

And she stumbled out her answer, “Because you and my dad had a ina-inaprop-ri-ate relationship.”

There was silence for a while, nobody dared speak a sound. They had already spread their whispers for the past months, but were too cowardly to do it now.

The girls comment was clearly told to her previously and had been simply been repeated like a parrot repeats something after it has been told multiple times.

The girl thought she heard Mom giggle a little when she made her comment, she had finally gotten some attention from Mom after months of none. She felt encouraged to do more, she ran around laughing at Sara. Mom tried to hide her slight satisfaction with the public humiliation that Sarah was receiving. Mom had felt the same public humiliation for a while now, and secretly liked to see it on Sarah.

Sarah left, and so did Dad and Mom, everyone else waited inside until both of our families had driven off. They couldn’t stand to be around the awkwardness anymore.

Dark Blue Van

The dark blue van was beat up and dirty, “Just Like Heaven” was blaring, and her little fingers were tapping on the window to the beat. She missed a few beats, but that was expected of a young girl.

“Today I went to Sarah’s house while I was waiting for you to pick me up mom!”

Distracted, but suddenly aware, Mom answered, “Oh really?”

“Yeah! And she has a little garbage can, but it’s not really a garbage can, it is full of candy!”

No response.

She couldn’t reach the button to roll down the window without grabbing the back of Mom’s chair and pulling herself forward. She pulls herself up and Mom yells at her “Don’t touch my seat!” She ignores her and rolls down the window.

The drive home from school is short, past Sarah’s house, then Clark Park, turn right, turn left, turn right, go up the hill and then home.

The van pulled into the driveway and she ran into the garage, brother was inside playing video games. The garage was full of couches, blankets, candy, and junk food. She ran into the house and found the dog, Mom called it the damned dog. She repeated that once to a friend and got in trouble. Mom came into the house, went to her room and closed the door. Sister came home from school with a friend. Her friend always wore long sleeves, even in the summer. She overheard Mom and sister talking about it one day and heard that one of her arms is missing. She assumed a shark had bitten it off, she saw that happen to people on shark week on T.V.

She finished her pretend homework that every young child is given in grade school. She wanted to wait up for Dad, but Mom made her go to bed.

The next day Mom was there to pick her up right after school got out. She didn’t get to go to Sarah’s house that day.

Mom took her to Clark Park to play with brother and his friends. She didn’t want to play there she wanted to play with Sarah’s family. She asked why she couldn’t play with Sarah’s family anymore, and mom ignored her question.

Dad didn’t come home that night. He was working late.

She saw Mom and Dad having a conversation later that month. Mom was crying and Dad had a look of disappointment. He pressed all five of his fingers into the top of his forehead and massaged his temple with his thumb. He did this when he was stressed or angry, he sighed a lot too.

At church everyone looked at her family with glancing eyes. She could hear the whispers from familiar faces, and feel them judging her and her family. Mom wouldn’t let her talk to Sarah after church anymore. She asked why. Mom answered. She didn’t understand the answer, so she asked again.

She asked again every day, and got the same answer every day.

After school Mom was late, for the first time in months. She was bored so she walked to Sarah’s house. Sarah hugged her, kissed her, and took her to the little garbage can filled with candy. She took some candy and went to play Polly Pockets with Sarah’s daughter. Going to Sarah’s was her favorite thing. She stayed there for thirty minutes, and decided she should probably leave.

She went back to the school and waited for mom to pick her up. She was really late that day. When Mom finally got there she felt guilty because she had gone to Sarah’s even though Mom had made it clear that she didn’t want her to. Mom didn’t seem focused, she was distant and sad. Mom was driving home, past Clark Park, but in her mind she was driving through darkness.

She was old enough to care about Mom and want to help her, but she was too young to formulate the question in an appropriate manner.

“Why is there a tear on your face?” She blurted

Mom wiped it away and said she had some news.

That night at dinner Mom told them she was pregnant. Sister was annoyed, that would be her fourth sibling, she didn’t want to be a huge annoying family, like the ones at church with seven kids. Dad wasn’t surprised, and he didn’t talk much that dinner. In fact, he hadn’t talked much at any dinner recently.

The next Sunday at church she felt the same eyes and whisper, she had felt them for over a month now. And she knew why. After church everyone gathered in the foyer to talk, half went to Sarah’s side and the other half came to her family’s side.

She walked up to Sarah, she was so pretty in her sunflower dress, and tugged at the hem of the dress. All eyes turned to her and watched. She looked up at Sarah and said, “I know why my family can’t play with your family anymore.”

She captured the attention of people on both sides of the foyer. People gasped and fidgeted with horrified looks on their faces.

“Why is that?” Sarah asked.

And she stumbled out her answer, “Because you and my dad had a ina-inaprop-ri-ate relationship.”

A Principle to Keep

The human race claims to uphold principles and morals. Many people contemplate disobeying these morals multiple times in their lives, some more than others. 

Morals tell us as people what we should or shouldn't do. Some are personal, while others are more lawfully backed. 

It is in human nature to act morally, therefore, one who acts morally is better pleased with himself than one who does not act morally. 

Since the first homo sapiens, people have had the choice to act morally or not to. A paper written on early human mortality suggests that those who prospered in early human life were the ones who chose a moral living standard.

Humans who live morally are happier, and have greater success. Humans who don't live this way are caught up in wrong doings, sadness, and despair; they don't prosper.

There are many principles that are considered moral, and that should be upheld in order to maintain the moral nature of humans. The most prominent of these, is to care for the people around you. Humans should recognize the struggles and imperfections of others around them and try to help them. 

Modern morals don't hold this principle as high as it should be. Humans are becoming more and more distant from each other, and they aren't able to help each other anymore. 

Like I said earlier about people disobeying morals, many people don't uphold principles that should be kept. These can be big or small principles, there is always a part of the human mind that will question the right answer, or path.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I am grateful for all of the interesting conversations we have in this English class. I'm thankful for all of the smart people in this class and for all of their input and knowledge that they give. I'm thankful for my group work buddies, Alex, Peter, and Dillon because they're smart and funny. I'm thankful for all the kids in the class that say stuff in the discussions when the rest of us are too scared, tired, or just too stupid to say anything. I'm thankful for all of you. Happy thanksgiving!

I Celebrate Myself

In society today it is hard for most people to express themselves for who they really are. People are afraid of judgement, and often do not even realize who they actually are. There is a sense of conformity that almost everyone follows, they go through trouble to be who they should be, not who they are. If people could realize how much potential they had, and how much they could accomplish; great things would happen. Everyone is different, they should't try to be something else, or be held back by societies  
views and restrictions.
During Thoreau's time everyone was focused on self realization and self thinking. People wanted to find out things for themselves and learn and become great things. Now, most people don't strive to gain knowledge and understanding of their capabilities.
The ability to celebrate yourself is extremely valuable and helpful when you are trying to accomplish things. With celebration of your abilities, and self realization, you are confident and better able to do things that are tough. Confidence is key in life, without it it is very hard to try new things and be social.

Poe

When Poe was two years old his mother died, and his father had already left the family. The Allan family adopted him and he began writing in his early teen years. He was always writing. He went to The University of Virginia and gambled to get money to pay off his debt but that didn't work, his only choice was to leave the school. He later applied to West Point, after schooling he began working as a writer full time. He started as a critic for newspapers and magazines. Many people saw him as the harshest critic. He released multiple works in the book, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.

Because Poe wrote in first person and he wrote about Opium many people thought he used drugs when he wrote. All of his horror works, mystery works, and vampire works led people to be confused by him and they saw him as a kind of dark presence. Poe's death was equally mysterious as his stories, he was found roaming the streets of of Baltimore and taken to the hospital. A few days after arriving at the hospital he died, the true reason is unknown, like all of his stories it was very mysterious and "unwritten."

What is an American?

Technically an American is someone who lives in America, but most commonly Americans are people who live in The United States.
What I think describes an American is someone who lives in America, and who has experience in all types of cultures. The U.S. is known as the melting pot for a reason, there are so many types of people, religions, and cultures here. To live here and not have experienced at least two different cultures in your life is nearly impossible.
To be and American also involves being free, or that is what it's supposed to mean, when explorers came to America they were seeking a few things but freedom was a main treasure they wanted. An important group that came were the Puritans, seeking a new world of their own, without people with different beliefs.
Another part of Americas history that shows freedom was the conflict between newly formed Americans and Britain to establish a new and free people.
To be an American is to be culturally diverse, to be free, free of religious conflict, free of slavery, and free of persecution.

The Modern Puritan

I don't think there is any group of people that can be compared to the Puritans because they were so strict and unforgiving, and that mind set and belief just doesn't prosper today. So I am going to write about how a Puritan would feel in today's modern world.
A Puritan in modern times would definitely be outcasted for their beliefs, because they are so radical. I also feel like the modern Puritan would be pretty judge mental towards people not of their faith, by thinking they are better than everyone. Almost everyone in today's society would be going to Hell if what the Puritans believed was true. 1) nobody dresses like the Puritans did, conservatively and dull. 2) many people don't go to church and keep the sabbath day holy, as the Puritans strongly believed should be done. 3) most people don't even know their 10 commandments. As we see in The Crucible, in extreme cases doing these things lead to people getting hung, granted we aren't going to have a Witch Trial; but still, we can see that the Puritan's were very strict and very opposite to the morals we, as a society, hold today.
In The Scarlet Letter we see Hester, being outcasted and completely ridiculed because of a sin she committed. The world today is filled with sinners, big or little sins, but sinners none the less. If Puritans were in our world they would attempt to outcast the sinners, but it would be difficult to do, seeing as just about everyone sins.
This is all not to say that there aren't any groups of people, and religions that do believe in strict rules and laws, but there aren't any quite as extreme as the Puritans.

John Proctor, Hero or Stooge?

            In this play John Proctor really cares about his “name” and what the town thought of him. Through out the play this shows in the way he interacts with the rest of Salem. A major example of this is when he is reluctant to confess his affair with Abigail.

            I think John is a hero because in the last scene he is about to lie and “confess” to being a witch, but he then decides on integrity. Proctor rips up his signed confession and goes to be hung. John chose to have integrity even though it was so easy for him to lie and not be hung. John stated that to lie and stay alive it would be a dishonor to the people who chose to not lie. I also think that he did this to not dishonor his name; Proctor wanted to be brave enough to die for something that he didn’t do.

            I enjoyed this last scene because of the emotion and dialogue between John and Elizabeth. John asks Elizabeth for forgiveness, to which she replies, it’s not mine to give. He later asks again and she tells him that she doesn’t need to forgive him, he needs to forgive himself. I think this means that he has been so caught up in holding his image and hating him self for his sins that he forgot to forgive himself. Even though Elizabeth was hurt by the affair she still loves John and John still loves her. This was a nice ending because John was able to see himself and he was able to choose integrity.

There goes the neighborhood

Written in a child’s perspective from Carthage Illinois in the early 1840s.

             I woke up on Monday morning to my parents arguing about the Mormons, those dang Mormons. They think they can just come to Illinois and have so much power, they have so much political influence here; at least that’s what my parents say. At school I heard some kids saying that their parents said the Mormons were bad, that they tried to take our stuff, and our land. I asked the kids why they would try to take our things, they told me that the Mormons steal everything, and that’s why they’re in Illinois. They used to be in Missouri, but they were kicked out because they wouldn’t stop stealing people’s stuff, so they moved here. Now the Mormons are taking our power in this state and in Hancock County.

            Months later I heard that the state had called for Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith’s arrest, Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon church. I wondered why they would want him arrested, I knew that yes everyone was worried about his growing power, but he didn’t commit any crimes. A lot of people told me things like, he’s a bad man who wants to steal our stuff, and take our land, but I knew that wasn’t really why. I finally found out that he had ordered that the facilities that produced the newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor, be destroyed. He didn’t like that newspaper because they published an issue saying that the Mormons practiced polygamy. My mother told me polygamy means that a man can have more than one wife.

            Joseph was finally arrested and he was to be kept here in Carthage. A lot of the people in the town were angry that they were to be staying here. I heard some people saying they wanted to hurt them, but they couldn’t because Governor Ford promised them safety. Despite the promise, one night a mob attacked the jail and shot Joseph and Hyrum. Everyone in the town talked about how they deserved it, about how these men were awful.

            After the men were killed, everyone in town still hated the Mormons. In Warsaw, a nearby town, they called for a wolf hunt; the wolves they would be hunting were the Mormons. When the Governor heard about this “wolf hunt” he ordered that it be stopped. The people of Hancock County continued to hate the Mormons.

            A year later I woke up to people rejoicing in the streets, I hadn’t seen people so happy in year. I asked my mom why everyone was so happy. She said that the Mormons are finally leaving Illinois. I learned that the Mormons said they would peacefully leave Nauvoo if they were left alone.

The Mormons were forced to leave Missouri in 1838, they fled to Nauvoo and built a very successful town. Other towns in Hancock County were nervous and jealous of this extremely powerful town. Persecutions began and eventually the Mormons were forced out of Illinois too. When the Mormons arrived in Illinois the people there felt that they were “taking over the neighborhood.” This is the story I thought of when given this prompt. I think its interesting that even when people don’t do anything wrong specifically, and they don’t mean to do harm to others it can still threaten and worry the people around them.

Me...

My name is Elli, and I am a sophomore. I'm moody, controlling, and easily annoyed. 

Music is the love of my life, I spend most of my free time either making music or listening to it and finding new artists. My favorite bands are probably, Stars, Lorde, Andrew Bird, Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara, and Sufjan Stevens. I play the guitar, and attempt to play the drums. 

I'm a photographer, I take a lot of family photos, baby photos, and senior portraits, but I enjoy artistic photography more. 

I play soccer, well..kinda.. Last year the JV girls team at Whitney Young didn't have a goal keeper, and since I have a lot of friends on the soccer team they begged me to do it, and I did. I went to two soccer camps over the summer and I've gotten a lot better, so I plan on playing again this year. 

I have three brothers and one sister. We are a pretty close family because we move a lot, so every time we move and we don't have friends yet we just hang out with each other. In my fifteen years that I've been alive I have lived in seven different houses and gone to nine different schools. People always ask which place I liked living in the most, and it's hard to decide 'cause I like each place for different reasons and also dislike each place for some reasons; however when it comes down to it I would say that either San Jose or Chicago are my favorite places to live.

Something that really defines my life style and my personality is the fact that I am a Mormon. A lot of people misunderstand my church and that bothers other Mormon teenagers, but I don't really mind, I'm chill about it. 

One last thing, I absolutely LOVE food.