Mr. Watt's Literary Services

This is an example of an expository essay where the student followed three different patterns: Sequencing, Cause and Effect, and Description.  Good job, Jonathan!

 Hurricane Irene

         The Mid-Atlantic Region is experiencing some winds up to fifty miles per hour and most states in that area are in very high chances of flooding. Both regions are having very different experiences now. The hurricane will soon be passing over, so you need to prepare. My mind imagined the water surrounding my house, swallowing it. I shook my head, trying not to think about it. There must be hundreds of thousands that evacuated, and that’s just from Connecticut, and it is so small compared to the other states.  The highways were really crowded, because everybody wanted to evacuate. It feels like we will get hit pretty badly; but perhaps we’ll get lucky, New Jersey could be underwater in some areas right now. There will probably be billions of dollars of damage, but soon everything will be the same. Even with losses, we have to move on. If we were in the most danger we would have the National Guard here, except they are in New York and New Jersey. The overall affect there has been lower than expected but repairs will still cost billions of dollars, even if not a lot of houses are destroyed. Flooding has been extreme. FEMA is still looking for money to help citizens but the government has already cut the budget - a government shutdown possible in the future if there is not enough money to support our country.        

       As Irene went over the Atlantic Ocean, the pressure barely dropped. Right now it is about 555 while our regular sea level air pressure is around 750, and is moving away from the sea, so it will not be condensing as much water vapor. The wind speed is getting lower and lower, moving in a clockwise motion. It is almost the end of the summer so we can just hope there will be no more hurricanes. People near the Long Island Sound should have all evacuated because there is eight feet of storm surge expected.

……………………………………………………………………………

     The howl of the cold and strong late Saturday wind could be heard miles away. The windows still shivered in fear though they begged for mercy to be spared from the wind. The trees groaned and moaned, and as root by root was torn from the ground, the evidence was right in front of me that the storm had definitely come.  A sudden flash of lightning in the sky shot right toward the wet grassy ground, producing the sound of thunder. Peeking out of the window I saw a swirl of the clouds; they were stacked on each other but they were definitely going in a circular motion. The yellow flash and streak of the lighting hit my neighbor’s backyard. It illuminated everything around it, and banished the darkness for a few seconds: the thunder was muffled over the furious wind, and suddenly the slow drone of the loss of power was heard throughout the North East. It was black everywhere. I couldn’t see where I was going. I bumped into a cold wall, stubbing my toe that I grabbed with pain. First I had to get something that could light my path. Where was that flashlight? I stumbled toward the table and found the flashlight. Grabbing it, I pressed the black rubbery button, producing a wave of light. Suddenly there was a faint swishing sound of something going back and forth. I wondered what it was. Then I realized it was the roar of the sea. I wondered if my friend Matthew had evacuated, as he lived on the coastline of the beach. There, you can climb down these smooth rock stairs with a rope as a handrail and on the last three steps you can feel the salty water splashing your toes.  
          I wonder when this will be over, I thought. Maybe it isn’t going to be over. The Weather Channel said that it would last around a day, but not even the Weather Channel is right sometimes. Even with the seventy-mile-per-hour winds, it was still humid and hot. Basically everything was not working. You couldn’t even buy or cook anything because all the stores were probably closed. At least there was warm water, only for a while though, because a couple hours later, it seemed the water they were getting was from Antarctica. All I could do is lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, waiting for my body to fall asleep. It seemed like an eternity and probably hours passed, then my eyes opened and it was morning.

It was a disaster outside: it was like a girl with a bad hair day, but for months. Trees were like fallen soldiers wounded in the war - could the trees be removed? It looked like a torn battlefield so that everything was a gigantic mess. There was some decent light throughout the house. I looked outside, and it seemed like wherever I looked almost every tree branch was just sitting on the ground, waiting to be picked up. We drove to the Home Depot to buy some supplies and luckily it was open. When we got back home, our power was on. That was quick, I thought.

      Since most people were prepared for Irene, we were able to recover from the disaster. However, a total of fifty-five people died from the hurricane, including people from Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. The power was slow in was being restored, but thankfully, we were using it by Monday, so we only had power out for about one and a half days. 

      Over seven hundred and fifty four thousand homes lost power, just in Connecticut! Now there are two new hurricanes approaching: will the North East get ready in time, or will the citizens be hit with another tragic blow? For those of you that don’t really know what hurricanes are, they are storms gathered in warm areas, mostly in the late summer; hurricanes are the next higher development from tropical storms.  Hurricanes form over the ocean because they need to extract water vapor from it. Unlike any other storm, the middle of it is always warm and calm and the whole storm has a very low air pressure. Once they are far away from the ocean they will gradually lose power. Hurricanes also include high-speed winds. Hurricane Irene is different from any other hurricane the North East has experienced since recording began. It includes storm surge, heavy rain, and thunderstorms in a Category One hurricane. Normally this would be only in Category Five hurricane but it is in the form of a Category One, which is very different from what New England has faced. We can just hope that we will pass through this one.

        Hurricane naming has been very important for keeping track of major weather systems. Back in the past, they named hurricanes with female names. We started to change our ways in the 1970s, and Hurricane Andrew is an example: in the past it would have perhaps been named Hurricane Audrey.The National Weather Service names hurricanes in the U.S.A. The choosing of names is random: it is just basically like closing your eyes and sticking your hand into a bag and pulling a piece of paper out. The list of names they have not picked could probably cover the whole width of the earth one time.

            Without technology we would probably still be in the Stone Age. I have always wondered why time is an important essence to innovation. Why didn’t we just think of computers centuries ago? Time is what we need to keep us thinking every day, to make things better. It is almost like a system, of input and hard work and effort. The output has been technology, and that helps us in life. This is a cycle that I hope will keep going and going. Technology costs money, and everything has a value, a price. I think that the better the quality the technology is, the more value it should be. Some places of the world are part of lots of areas filled with poverty. As the rest of the world advances, where will these poverty-filled communities be, unable to purchase the technology? We can donate to these communities, but we can only do so much, as this might create an imbalance in the world, causing disruption and thus triggering a fight for resources to survive. While some places will have fancy furniture and cars, the rest of the world could be in search for food and water.  

      Innovation is in everyone’s blood, which is why the imagination creates reality.  Leonardo Da Vinci designed helicopters! Helicopters were actually invented in the twentieth century. His dreams have come true.  To me, most humans take electricity for granted and we don’t think about what it was like back before its use. I hope the world together can remember the journey this planet has been through. We should use our resources, because this is everyone’s land to share.  We need to be wise in our decisions, since they affect the things around us: everyone has a connection to electricity in some way. Most people feel that power outages ruin everything in our lives. However, long ago people only had flame. Electricity is something that allows us to excel in life, but we also forget the old ways of just using a simple but useful candle.  We use flashlights now, right, and we still use candles today. In Hanukkah they use candles; this might sound funny but why not just use flashlights? This is because sometimes, tradition rules over technology and using something advanced is not always necessary, and what the past used carries on.  

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 It was nighttime and I was under my cozy blankets in my bed; I looked up into my dark bluish ceiling. The wind was still blowing, every now and then all the way to the Mid-Atlantic region. I felt so peaceful even though the hurricane outside was blasting and rocking. I wondered why everything in life worked the way it did. I realized I was one of many other people who were experiencing this natural disaster throughout the North East region. Compared to all the other states and countries in the world Connecticut is a puny baby, and it is like as if the rest of the world is a fifty-foot tall giant. I felt so weird that I was just one of billions of people, each with a new story to tell, and this my story. Each story from everyone is different in some way, and this is mine. The story of a kid named Jonathan who experienced his first hurricane ever. Then my eyes fluttered, and I slowly closed them and fell asleep in my bed, with the cold Sunday wind in Connecticut still blowing outside. 

 In the Eyes of a Veteran
 
 
 

                 In “Travels with Charley: In Search of America”, John Steinbeck’s purpose is to journey across America in order to rediscover the nation by interacting with different people; he also describes the beauty of the landscape that he sees, and lets the readers meet the characters themselves with well-written dialogue.  Finding that his health was declining, Steinbeck had the urge to be free before he was old and disabled, and this led to his visits to the Iowa hometown of Sinclair Lewis and a New Orleans stop where he observed the beginnings of the Civil Rights era, to camping in Maine and interacting with wild coyotes in the Arizona desert. Steinbeck has a way of letting the readers connect with America of 1960 the way he connected with it himself.

     As recorded in these travels, he makes several reflections on the American culture, and some of them I think are very clever. At one point of the story Steinbeck accidently trespasses and is caught by a guard. He thinks quickly about how their conversation will be unpleasant and cause an argument. This shows an American’s attitude related to their own belongings and how far they will go to keep them safe. I think that this is a trait reflected by the author, to notice how rich people in America are getting and spending money on guard dogs and/or fences to really protect their property.  Steinbeck acted in a calm way and relaxed the guard, which led the guard to trust him and they became friends.  From Steinbeck’s attitude the reader can tell that he thinks that everyone should be friendly and not be so hostile to people about their property; perhaps during Steinbeck’s time people was more open about their property and not so hostile.

            Another interesting cultural reflection that Steinbeck makes is when he describes the food and the radio. He says “We’ve listened to local radio station … it has been as generalized, as packaged and as undistinguished as the food.” Steinbeck is saying that the food and radio are very similar because they are the same from place to place and lack variety.  He is making a reflection about the homogeneity of American culture – this perhaps is a new development that disturbs him. All this disappoints Steinbeck because it is dull. When Steinbeck was young he loved to play outside instead of staying inside and he loved to eat homemade cookies. Now everything is factory-made and the entertainment is colorless to Steinbeck.

            When Steinbeck travels to California, he reflects on politics. He argues with his sisters over what party is superior: the Democrats or the Republicans.  Steinbeck would say “You talk like a communist,” and his sister would say “Well, you sound suspiciously like Genghis Khan.” This reflects on the divisive political scene during 1960 and how Americans thought of foreign power and political philosophies differently. It further indicates Americans’ fear of foreign dictators.

      Steinbeck describes human interactions and nature differently. Steinbeck describes nature by giving the reader a feel of the atmosphere. In Steinbeck’s stay in Redwood forest, he uses this style effectively. Steinbeck describes how there is almost no sound or movement in the forest and how “the thick soft bark absorbs sound and creates silence.”

     Steinbeck describes human interactions by writing a conversation and letting the reader feel what the characters are feeling.  When Steinbeck is about to go to Canada, a customs worker stops him and tells him that he needs a certificate for his dog.

      The worker says, “Please step in.”

      Steinbeck replies “I told you I have not been to Canada. If you were watching, you would have seen that I turned back.”

      The worker asks again: “Step this way, please sir.”

      They argue even more and when Steinbeck leaves, the reader can feel the tension in the conversation and how furious Steinbeck is that he cannot go to Canada.

                  I think that in many places in the book, Steinbeck confronts multiple themes like community, human interactions, and perspective. In every chapter Steinbeck observes human interactions and reflects on the community. In the beginning of the book Steinbeck observes how people in Maine interact. He observes that people barely talk and when they do they say very little. Once when he was in Maine he talked to a waitress and how all her responses were formalities.

     Steinbeck talks about time and its passage in the beginning of the book. He says, “When I was very young and the urge to be some place else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch…” Then Steinbeck goes on to saying that the itch has not been cured. This shows that he has wanted to do this trip for a long time. Steinbeck looks into many views of humans and animals. At one point of the book he actually writes about how Charley, his poodle, would respond to his questions like “Where should we stay for the night?” and imagines how Charley would respond.             When one is reading it seems that Steinbeck is one of those wise men who have seen many different things and is observing these changes. He explores the nation and thinks about the past, present, and the future. If he were alive today he would be surprised. Why? Because the country has not changed as much as one may think it has.

             As Steinbeck toured the country, he experienced people staying indoors with their radios and televisions. In the present day entertainment also occurs indoors like video games and time spent on the computer. Mainly I think that the people in the US and the way they act hasn’t changed. Americans’ willingness to spend money to protect their private property, for example, hasn’t changed. Over all America may have changed during Steinbeck’s life, but it has not changed dramatically after Steinbeck’s death.

Steinbeck’s Drive towards Perfection

In 1962, John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In his introductory speech, Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, notably contributes an entire paragraph to Steinbeck’s most recent book, Travels with Charley: “Steinbeck’s latest book is an account of his experiences during a three-month tour of forty American states: Travels with Charley, (1962). He traveled in a small truck equipped with a cabin where he slept and kept his stores. He traveled incognito, his only companion being a black poodle. We see here what a very experienced observer and raisonneur he is. In a series of admirable explorations into local color, he rediscovers his country and its people. In its informal way this book is also a forceful criticism of society. The traveler in Rocinante - the name which he gave his truck - shows a slight tendency to praise the old at the expense of the new, even though it is quite obvious that he is on guard against the temptation. ‘I wonder why progress so often looks like destruction’, he says in one place when he sees the bulldozers flattening out the verdant forest of Seattle to make room for the feverishly expanding residential areas and the skyscrapers. It is, in any case, a most topical reflection, valid also outside America.”

      After being introduced, the author made his own speech. Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize banquet speech reveals both his respect for the writer’s craft, and his insistence in the possibility of human perfectibility.  Steinbeck begins his speech by refusing to humbly accept his Nobel Prize, instead promising “to roar like a lion out of pride in [his] profession.” And roar he does. Steinbeck, throughout his 5-minute speech, talks about the responsibilities of the writer and his place in society. The profession of writing and the creation of literature, Steinbeck says, are as old as human speech. Writers exist to capture human greatness, but even more so, “the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer’s reason for being.” That Steinbeck holds the profession of writing in such high esteem shows how much he cares about his work, and how seriously he takes his job. He finds that reflecting human nature requires examination of its errors and secrets as well as celebration of the “proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit”. Every time Steinbeck writes, there is a meaning in his writing and some amount of profundity to be observed. Steinbeck crafts his masterpieces just as Michelangelo did - with respect. Michelangelo’s David is a testament to the perfectibility of man, just as Steinbeck’s works are. Steinbeck’s characters, however, are not perfect as David is; in his works Steinbeck presents characters that are morally flawed, are human. Because if one, like David, has no flaws, then is one still human? Michelangelo failed to provide a pathway to the perfection of man, instead giving an ideal example. Steinbeck, on the other hand, points out the weaknesses of men in hopes that they can observe their flaws, change them, and gradually build towards a more perfect human race. He claims that the writer “is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.” Steinbeck looks so deeply into the flaws of human nature and within himself not because he is cynical, but because he truly cares about his fellow human beings, and hopes to lend his talents to the eventual and real perfection of man, just as Alfred Nobel tried to do during his own lifetime.

      In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck aligns himself with the American population. He comments on both the new age of distrust in America and his own distrust of submarines; he talks about growing detachment in America with the advent of mobile homes and urbanization, as well his own detachment from his home town. Most importantly, perhaps, Steinbeck is not hesitant to show his fear for his country or the new fear that his country now has of the future. Steinbeck reveals these weaknesses for the purpose of trying to improve America; Travels with Charley is, as R. Sandler, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, comments, “not only a search for but also a revelation of America, as you [Steinbeck] yourself say: ‘This monster of a land, this mightiest of nations, this spawn of the future turns out to be the macrocosm of microcosm me.’”

      Before writing Travels with Charley, Steinbeck had already achieved both commercial success and critical acclaim with his books. The Grapes of Wrath, which many considered to be his magnum opus, was an obvious choice for the Great American Novel: its masterful and powerful language rivaled Moby Dick’s, and its ability to capture the zeitgeist of the nation rivaled The Great Gatsby’s. East of Eden, which Steinbeck considered to be his own greatest work, became a bestseller within weeks of its release and was became a major Hollywood picture. Now, at the age of 58 and a constant smoker and drinker with a heart condition, John Steinbeck knew he didn’t have long to live. By his son Thom’s account, Steinbeck “knew he could have died at any time.” A lesser man, then, might have felt accomplished with their life and content to relax and watch the world fly by. A lesser man might in fact have begun “to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-individualism,” as Steinbeck so eloquently puts it. But Steinbeck refused to accept the role that was expected of older men in society; in fact, he was adamant that he live fully and thus, he embarked on his travels with Charley, a big blue French poodle and “a born diplomat.” One year after his journey, Steinbeck published The Winter of Our Discontent, his last novel; in it, Steinbeck comments that, “No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.” As Steinbeck makes his way through America with Charley as his lone companion, he makes profound insights into both the state of America and his own life, albeit through the eyes of a wise curmudgeon. By the end of his journey, Steinbeck comes across the revelation that, “From start to finish I found no strangers … these are my people and this is my country. If I found matters to criticize and to deplore, they were tendencies equally present in myself.”

      It is important to note a recent development in the study of Travels with Charley. Upon in-depth study, several independent observers (among them Bill Steigerwald, a notable political commentator) have found discrepancies between the timeline that Steinbeck presents in the book and the postmarked letters that he mailed back home. Steigerwald tried to duplicate the trip taken by Steinbeck using Travels with Charley and letters sent from Steinbeck to his wife, but found that it was impossible for Steinbeck to have both timelines. Nonetheless, it is clear from Steinbeck’s in-depth understanding of American character from so many different regions that he did in fact make a journey across the United States in time shortly before Kennedy’s ascension to office.     

      Steinbeck captures tension in a way that not many authors can in Travels with Charley. Steinbeck’s first mention of uneasiness is when he encounters the submarines on his ferry ride from New York to Connecticut: “…a submarine slipped to the surface half a mile away, and the day lost part of its brightness. Farther away another dark creature slashed through the water, and another … the dark things lurked searching for us with their single-stalk eyes … and now submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.” Steinbeck’s wariness of the submarine is comparable to the country’s recently rooted suspicions of both the Russians and of each other. While stopped in New Hampshire, Steinbeck encounters a farmer who gives some interesting insight into the people of America at the time. The farmer comments that, “this might be the secretest election we ever had. People just won’t put out an opinion.” This leads Steinbeck to wonder whether, and why, people are scared to have an opinion. Following Steinbeck’s reflection on the submarines, he talks to a young sailor who testifies that the underwater creatures offer a certain - future. It is this same future that instills uneasiness in Steinbeck, with the new technological threats that infiltrate the world, and it is this same future that instills uneasiness in America, with the uncertainty of the election and potential disaster of the Cold War.

      Another presence that Steinbeck observes as he travels the country is that of an almost ironic, sarcastic coldness. The “raisonneur,” intentionally or not, starts his observations on human coldness in Maine, the coldest state that he visits. While in Maine, Steinbeck stays at an autocourt hotel. The waitress at the restaurant “wasn’t happy, but then she wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t anything.” Steinbeck tried to make conversation, but the waitress was unresponsive to his attempts. Steinbeck admitted, “She got me. I felt so blue and miserable I wanted to crawl into a plastic cover and die.” He went back to his hotel room, where everything was covered in plastic: “Everyone was protecting me and it was horrible.” That night, Steinbeck wonders what happened to the homey America that he had grown to love. He is rehabilitated by the image of the aurora borealis that he sees outside, but all throughout the journey, Steinbeck makes mentions of the increasing lack of feeling within America. In the South, Steinbeck is struck by a different kind of coldness; the coldness of people like the Cheerleaders, “who, by some curious definition of the word ‘mother,’ gathered every day to scream invectives at children.” This coldness is one that Steinbeck can’t get over; the words are “bestial and filthy and degenerate” – unforgivable. America seems to be contracting a cold fever.

      Steinbeck, as he travels across America, sees in his head an America that is uniformly becoming more detached. First is the loss of localism – Steinbeck notes while listening to the radio that “If ‘Teen-Age Angel’ is the top of the list in Maine, it is top of the list in Montana.” Second is the detachment from family – with increased urbanization comes lack of uniqueness and specialty. When Steinbeck first encounters the mobile homes, the “new things under the sun, increasing in number all over the nation … that sit down in uneasy permanence,” he comments on their detachment. However, as Steinbeck talks to some of the people that have chosen this lifestyle, he is posed many questions that he can’t seem to find the answer to. One mobile home inhabitant asks him, “What roots are there in an apartment twelve floors up? What roots are in a housing development of hundreds and thousands of small dwellings almost exactly alike?” Steinbeck then reaches an epiphany: “Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection?” He cites the popularity of the mobile homes and the overwhelming number of people that envy and ask to partake in his journey as evidence of his new hypothesis. While Steinbeck is reflecting on the detachment of the people of America, he is experiencing a similar distance from his own hometown. He prefaces his visit with the sentence, “What I am about to tell must be the experience of very many in this nation where so many wander and come back.” When he revisits Salinas, California, Steinbeck admits, “The place of my origin had changed, and having gone away I had not changed with it. In my memory stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me.” He appears to only talk with his family about politics, and even in political opinion he has grown apart from his hometown. Steinbeck, ending his return to his hometown sad and nostalgic, comments “I think my experience may not be unique,” showing the applicability of yet another reflection Steinbeck has of himself to the entire country.    

      For Steinbeck and for America, these feelings of uneasiness, coldness, and detachment manifest themselves in loneliness. Steinbeck confesses to a “feeling of gray desolation” right from the beginning of his journey. As he drives along the roads, Steinbeck thinks about his friends: “I can only suspect that the lonely man peoples his driving dreams with friends … Finding this potential in my own mind, I can suspect it in others …” In a country that has become more unified than ever with its new infrastructure and homogeneity in culture, more and more people are becoming alienated, as Steinbeck is. The fear of communicating with others, the coldness of some Americans, and the detachment from families and cultures all contribute to this alienation.

      Throughout Steinbeck’s travels across America, he primarily points out flaws in the new yet still-evolving country. Steinbeck said of Nobel during his speech that “some say that he became cynical,” and a misguided reader could easily reach a similar conclusion of Steinbeck after reading Travels with Charley. However, Steinbeck didn’t believe Nobel was at all a cynic, but instead an optimist and believer “in the human mind and the human spirit.” Steinbeck, too, did not become a cynic later in life as he witnessed the change in America. Steinbeck is quick to acknowledge the bright and hopeful spots of humanity that he encounters as well. In Oregon, the traveler meets a man that goes to great lengths to get proper tires for Rocinante that instilled in him “such humble greatness that [he] could hardly speak.” Steinbeck wished that the “evil-looking [for he was evil looking] service man live a thousand years and people the earth with his offspring.” In Texas, Steinbeck finds a young, lively veterinarian who takes a deep interest in his profession (just as Steinbeck does)*. This dedicated and confident young man gave Steinbeck faith that perhaps there were some in the next generation that could in fact help America. At the end of his journey, Steinbeck is sullen and dejected after witnessing the horrors of the South; the men who looked into his van and compared African Americans to Charley, a dog; the African Americans who harbor a similar distrust because they are so used to being abused and berated; the Cheerleaders, with their curses “far worse than dirt, a kind of frightening witches’ Sabbath.” At this lowest point in Steinbeck’s journey, he encounters a man that looks like a saint. This man, who Steinbeck identifies as Monsieur Ci Gît, or loosely translated “the end,” reassures Steinbeck that in the end, segregation will give way and America will become united. This man gave Steinbeck the feeling of optimism with “sweetness like music,” and Steinbeck ends his journey cautiously optimistic for America’s future. Steinbeck, being a writer, stays true to his own assignment for writers; to not only feature “our many grievous faults and failures … dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement,” but also “to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.” Steinbeck in Travels with Charley epitomizes the responsibilities of the writer outlined in his speech. His commentary on the nation can be compared to a caring teacher’s marks on an essay; the mistakes are pointed out and the positives heralded, all so that the student can hopefully listen and better himself for the future. Travels with Charley is Steinbeck’s ultimate testament to human perfectibility.

 My alarm clock went off at 6 o’ clock in the morning, the sky still pitch dark. While I got ready for school, the just-woke-up-drowsiness, like fog, faded away. The worries I had built up in my mind about entering a new school came back to me. For the past few months they had followed me everywhere — they woke up with me, and tagged along during my daily routine, only leaving me when I went to bed. Today, I would have to confront those fears, today was my first day of school at Greenwich Academy. Once again, I’d be the new kid.  

      As my mother drove me to the all-girls school, there was not a word said between the two of us. She was just as anxious as I was, if not more. Twenty minutes after leaving home, we arrived at the school, and its winding paths leading up the building in which I would spend the next four years. Mom wished me luck as I exited the car and drove away, her car lights glowing in the misty air. Then I looked around me. 

      Filled with roaring cheers from spirited seniors, surrounded by the cars

glistening from the raindrops falling from the cloudy sky, and inhabited by

a sense of excitement that was catching, Greenwich Academy welcomed

me with an everlasting first impression. The peace and serenity of the place seemed to comfort me. Confident and determined, I entered the building. 

      By lunchtime I had already met many of my classmates, all of whom were very welcoming and kind-hearted, and was quite content with all of my teachers and classes. While I munched on my burger and French fries, I chatted with my companions. We gossiped about the cutest boys at our brother school, Brunswick and joked about the Bel Canto (choir) teacher’s miserable haircut. Before I knew it, I had relaxed and was being myself.  

      After classes, came the sports. For the season, I chose to run cross-country. In my old middle school, for cross-country all I had to do was run freely for around forty minutes, but this was not the case at Greenwich Academy. Because I had already participated in preseason for two weeks, I was acquainted with all my fellow runners. Each day we’d run miles and miles (timed, of course) and afterwards be panting and drained of every drop of energy in our bodies, but proud of our accomplishment. The first day of regular practice was no different, and once again once I finished the difficult tasks assigned to me by the coach, I was weary, yet satisfied. Driving home from school after the exhausting but awarding practice, drenched in sweat, I began reminiscing on my first day of school, and the people I met.  

      Her name was Jordan and she introduced herself to me at 8:15 in the morning, her eyes full of spunk, her laugh full of joy, and her honesty shining through like a beam of light in a misty cloud. She had become my first friend at GA. Luckily for me, Jordan was in my first period class, so as we rushed from classroom to classroom, unsuccessfully attempting to find our English class before the period began, I got to know her better. I discovered she was a wonderful person, inside and out. My excitement for having made such a wonderful friend was uncontainable, and my face had broken out into a permanent smile. Eventually we arrived at the right classroom, and though we were tardy, that was trivial. I had a “buddy”, a “pal”.  

      Jordan was not the only person I met that morning who impressed me that morning. In my English class (the one I failed to get to in time) I met Ms. Gault whose bubbly personality was like none that I’d ever seen before. Unlike most teachers I’d previously had, Ms. Gault seemed like the type of person who would strive every day actually to make a difference in her students’ academic lives. Although the duration of time of the period was short, I noticed that I had already become attached to the young teacher. I knew for a fact that she would not only make the class educational, but throughout the year, I’d have a great time. 

      In bed that night, I was utterly and blissfully happy. All my uneasiness from the morning had been useless, I felt silly for ever having any concerns. Even though it was only day one, seeing students lose their voices from screaming so much and so loudly for their school, and having teachers whose attitudes match those of my passionate classmates, I knew deep in my heart that GA was where I belonged for my high school career. However, I knew that night I wouldn’t be able to sleep. The reason would not be that I was apprehensive about school still, but that I was so eager to get up the next morning to go to school!  When finally I drifted to sleep, I was like a bear, hibernating in the winter— my bed the cave.

Utopias

by Jing-Wei Lee

Utopia: based on Greek ou ‘not’ + topos ‘place.’

     The definition of the word utopia is: ‘An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.’ We all dream of the perfect world, but each person has different ideals so our ideas of perfection may all be different. Two examples of fully imagined perfect places are the setting for the novels ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry and ‘Player Piano’ by Kurt Vonnegut.

Utopias have been said to be “ … a perfect paradise that doesn’t exist, but which we all dream of anyway.” Based on what our world is now, the only thing we seem to have of for complete and utter peace and perfection are hopes and dreams that we put on paper for the public to read.

     ‘The Giver’ is a novel about a utopian society that is seemingly perfect for almost everyone. There is no war, no conflict. Everyone is treated equally and the emotions there have been “toned down.” Without extreme emotions like love, jealousy, greed and anger, many conflicts are avoided like divorce and heartbreak. Without love the people of that utopian society have been spared from much emotional pain. There are also no social classes which avoids a lot of problems. There is no violence because there is no envy, greed, or social classes which ends up being beneficial to all. The population has also been controlled, which has been the root of many problems we face today like world hunger, overpopulation, and environmental issues like global warming. Children are assigned to a family; they do not stay with their birth mothers.  Matching a child to an ideal family should provide a safe environment for them to live in. In this way, there are no orphans or abused children, not that anyone has any evil incentives.  Also everyone is given the same amenities, for instance, all the children get a bike on a certain birthday so that they can avoid jealousy and envy. The scientists in that world have also changed people’s eyes so that they no longer see color, they can only see in grey, like dogs do, which also prevents problems. This world is a utopia because there is no violence, poverty or hunger. The government and leaders have taken over, but it is better than chaos.

     ‘Player Piano’ is another novel set in a utopian society. In this novel there is no poverty, hunger or war. The machines have taken over many jobs, performing them more quickly, efficiently and cheaply than humans can, making better quality products and using less money. The more intelligent with better jobs may have more money than others, but there are no homeless and starving on the street. Those who work in the division “Reeks and Wreaks” in the novel have initially the same houses with the same technology and are given sufficient amount of food. Also, because of the improvement in machines, people now have things like dishwashers that can clean things in just seconds. That way people don’t have to worry so much about taking up time with house chores like cooking and cleaning. The government and the intelligent people have taken over and have made America into a utopia.

     Both novels are set in a utopian society, but those societies aren’t completely perfect. In ‘The Giver’ the people living in the society live in peace without many of the problems we have today in the real world, but they have lost a lot of freedom in this society. As mentioned, their ability to see color was taken away without their consent. Most of the people living in this utopian society do not even know about color. Another example is feelings: these people do not know true feelings like love. Thus a parent will not really love a child, which is very sad. Also, people are not able to choose their spouses - they are paired up based on things like characteristics and such. That is very unfair. Children will also never know their grandparents because of how the community works. This utopian society also kills the old and the lighter one of a set of twins. From the way this society works, they do not see this killing as anything morally wrong. It’s just a part of the job that they have. The weather is also controlled, so there is no such thing as rain and snow. Without snow, a child loses the chance to experience fun activities like snowball fights, sledding, and ice skating. There will be no precious child memories about Christmas and getting presents.  

In the novel ‘Player Piano’ your status and future is all based on how intelligent you are, otherwise you will either have to work in the army or at “Reek and Wrecks.” That isn’t really a utopian society because this isn’t equality, and many people will not be happy with their positions as not everyone is a genius. Also in this world machines have taken over many jobs. Say a child has a dream of being a pilot. What if a machine was created that eliminated the need for a human pilot? That child wouldn’t even have a shot at their dream. People should be able to have the chance to achieve their dream jobs if they can. In the Player Piano society people have to take tests that will determine their future. If a college boy studies as hard as he possibly can, but is not intelligent enough, isn’t that unfair? He’s a good, hardworking young man. Also, what if the tests are wrong? What if a really imaginative kid was taking the test to see how creative he was, bombed that test? Machines may be better than humans in many ways, but they are not perfect. They cannot think for themselves when a problem or something new pops up. Player Piano may be a utopian society, but not everyone living in that community is happy with it.

     ‘The Giver’ and ‘Player Piano’ are both novels about utopia, and there are other similarities and differences. In both worlds there is no poverty or hunger. Everyone has enough to eat and has good homes to live in. Also both novels mention jobs that are the most desirable or the most honorable. Both novels are narrated by a central male character who eventually comes to see faults in his utopian society. At first they view their world to be perfect, but through a series of events and through influential people in their lives, they see their utopian world in a different light and take action. One difference in the novels is that ‘Player Piano’ is set in an era of technological advances, while ‘The Giver’ isn’t as high-tech. Another difference is that children in ‘The Giver’ are matched up to jobs depending on their personality and where they spent their community hours, while ‘Player Piano’s’ job placement depends on one’s intelligence. Also the people in ‘Player Piano’ can see colors and have memories of the past while people in ‘The Giver’ cannot. In ‘Player Piano’ there is a fine line between the rich and the regular people while in ‘The Giver’, there really aren’t concrete social classes. The Giver also mentions the job of a “Birth Mother” to create new life and control the population, and infants are assigned to a family that applies for a new child, but in ‘Player Piano’, children stay with their birth parents. Also in ‘The Giver’, most of the people living in that utopian society have shallow feelings and only know the life that they have and the jobs that they do, while in ‘Player Piano’ people have real true feelings and try to rebel to achieve a new life. Also, in ‘The Giver’, people are matched up to their spouses based on their personality and character while in ‘Player Piano’, people can choose who they want to be with. All in all, the people in ‘Player Piano’ seem to have more freedom of choice overall than those in ‘The Giver’.

     Both novels about utopia display the hopes and ideals for the perfect world. In both novels the characters face confusion and desperation about what is right and wrong, but eventually find their way to their true beliefs in the end. Another similarity in these two works of literature is the main character finding something wrong with their seemingly perfect world. What seems to be real gold may actually be gilded wood that burns quickly and easily in the fire.

Center for Talented Youth: Lancaster, PA

By Jing-Wei Lee

    As I walked down the hallway to my room, I noticed something - there were pictures of squirrels on all of the doors. (I would later learn that squirrels meant first years at CTY.) I was rather pleased with my picture: a terribly obese squirrel nibbling on an acorn. “Stripes”.  Stripes was probably the name of the roommate I would be sharing my room with.  I hoped that she was a nice girl. My first impression after our split-second encounter was that she was a pleasant girl who wore a lot of mascara. I liked my room too: a good springy bed, a nice desk and rocking chair-like chair, a medium-sized mirror, drawers, a big wardrobe, and there was also a good working air conditioner humming along near the windows! Hurray!

    Students eat together with their hall (a group of students in a section to a floor) and RAs (people who watch over a group of students in a hall and organize afternoon activities) for the first two breakfasts of the term, but you’re on your own after that for all meals. I would later learn to love CTY, but it’s a different community from all the other sites (CTY has a bunch of sites all over the place, even one in Hawaii I believe) and everyone there practically already knows everyone and is already in all their little groups so “newbies” had some trouble.  I was a newbie, but luckily I had planned to go there with my friend so I was saved from sitting alone and not knowing anything about CTY. The food there was pretty good. There was Asian food, a grill with hamburgers and hot dogs, pizza, salad bar, soup, etc. There was also this section called “Kivo” with kosher food, rolls and wraps, grilled cheese sandwiches, and cheese quesadillas.  There was also dessert: humungous chocolate chip cookies, different kinds of cake everyday, and ice cream (which always had a line)!

    First impressions are always subject to change. And mine did. My first class was a little nerve-racking. We had to read essays from old dudes like Aristotle and Socrates, which made my brain hurt and required me to read their papers veeeery sloooooooowly. Some of the people in my class are abnormally fast readers, like Top-Hat. When Top-Hat was done with the article, other people were still near half done. Amazing! Our teacher seemed a little nerdy (as all teachers may seem) as did our TA (teacher’s assistant) and as nervous as we were. He kept on saying “um” a lot and his voice seemed a little weird (his trembling was all gone once he knew us better). There were an equal number of boys and girls in out class, seven of each. There was one really, REALLY tall boy named Happy, who later turned out to be the friendliest, and a very good story teller. His stories about his horrible school would always make the entire class laugh. Soon though, we were all comfortable with each other and Fuzzy (teacher) and Suns (TA-teacher’s assistant) turned out to be beyond awesomeness! Fuzzy would show us all these fantastic videos and after a while, “Larry,” a drawing that Fuzzy often used to teach us philosophy, was known as our beloved class mascot.  Larry looks a bit like Pac-Man and is used to give the class a visual on the lesson Fuzzy is teaching.  Fuzzy would also show us GoogleNews and Twitter so we would know what was going on in the world, which my mom said was a good thing.

    We wrote a paper and had a test on the last day and I was very happy with both. We talked about stuff like the brain in a vat: this is the hypothesis that we may actually be brains in jars attached to a machine, making us believe we were living through a regular life as a regular person, not as a brain in a vat. Another topic was whether or not we existed. I distinctly remember the quote “Cogito Ergo Sum” - “I think, therefore I am.” The only thing one can know for sure is that your mind exists. So the physical world could all be a hallucination! We also talked about subjects like dualism - the belief that mind and body are separate; the Chinese room experiment which was an experiment to demonstrate how machines do not understand, and the Mary Experiment - an experiment to see if knowing all the facts of the physical world means that you know everything, and many other topics.

    Sometimes our class would collaborate with the class next door to do debates, watch videos or do other fun activities. For the debates there were two sides and then there were the neutral people who would move to the side that had convinced them of their view. We had debates on whether machines could think and whether humans could know if God exists. Both times one side won by a landslide while the other only had one or two people on their side. During the debate about God, a girl from the other class started talking about how cats could sense God … that just made most of the people shift to the other side. (From then on we referred to that girl as the “cat lady.”) On the machines debate, one side just started contradicting themselves resulting in the other side winning. Both were very good debates that helped us learn a lot, while enjoying each other. We also watched a movie about an opera that was very boring and made other people fall asleep. It was a new movie and we were among the first people who saw it. I think the teachers learned to never show that to students ever again though. It was really bad. We also watched two videos about this man named Bill that people really liked but I did not get. (I had my friends explain to me the meaning of those videos later on.)

    In the afternoon we would do fun activities that we had signed up for. Activities were also good for meeting new people and I made some new friends. I once signed up for this activity called “Rob Knows Many Things” where we would test the extent of Rob’s knowledge. One great thing about CTY is it’s a place for nerds and it’s a place where you can be yourself, so during that activity we ended up mostly talking about Pokemon cards. Most of the time I signed up for activities with my friends, and tried to sign up for indoor activities. It was kinda hot at Lancaster and if you were outside, you were probably gonna get a bunch of bug bites. After a while I was sick of getting bug bites and wore jeans, like my friend. It was a little uncomfortable, but at least I didn’t get any new bug bites.

    On Fridays and Saturdays there would be dances in the evening. People who had been here before and could choose to bring fancy dresses, shoes and jewelry. You didn’t have to get all dressed up though, you could just wear there what you wore all day. The dances were a lot of fun, but my friend and I usually just went to the movie room and saw the movie that they were showing. We didn’t feel like dancing and it made the time pass by a lot faster. During some of the songs there were specific things that people do. Like during the song “American Pie” people form a big circle and then rush to the middle of the dance floor. And there were also “Rave Circles.” At CTY, or at Lancaster anyway, during dances you take two glow sticks on strings (which you can wear as necklaces and carry around with you) and spin them around. People like to practice swinging around the glow sticks whenever they have free time and like to impress each other with new tricks. In rave circles people form a circle and all the people who can swing around the glow sticks go into the middle and show their stuff. All those whirling lights in the dark of the dance floor makes for an impressive show. During one dance two RAs did a planned dance to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Huzzah! The dances are an awesome part of CTY even if one just wants to watch.

    The weekends were a time for relaxation and the only days you could do your laundry. We didn’t have any classes except for study hall on Sunday, but otherwise we had a lot of free time on our hands. You could sleep in on the weekends, but I woke up super early on Saturdays to do my laundry because I didn’t want to do it on Sunday and you had to get there early or you would have to wait a long time for a dryer. There were eight washing machines and eight dryers per building, but the first week two of the dryers were broken so I had to wait around an hour for one. It only takes 37 minutes to wash, but an hour to dry. I didn’t like waiting in that hot room for an hour just to do my laundry! My friend told me that it’s even worse at the Johns Hopkins site where they only have around nine washing machines FOR THE WHOLE SITE!! That’s why there’s Internet at Johns Hopkins: people need something to do while waiting, according to her. And there’s no Internet at Lancaster, (you need a password which some students have actually cracked before) probably so that students can concentrate on their studies or something. On weekends you could watch movies or go to the farmer’s market, or just hang out. My friends and I played cards, played computer chess, and typed up stories on a laptop that Tomato, a friend, brought. On Sunday there was “hall bonding” where the hall would all do something together. My hall just went onto Netflix (RAs and instructors had Internet access) and watched the movie “10 Things I Hate About You,” a movie that is based on The Taming of the Shrew, and episodes from “Bones” and “Parks and Recreation” while pigging out on junk food, cup noodles and cup ramen, and SKL. Fun!  Halls would also walk over to Turkey Hill (gas station shop) to buy stuff. Turkey Hill got a lot of business from CTY students. A very popular drink sold at Turkey Hill was strawberry-kiwi lemonade, also referred to as “SKL.” CTY had to put a limit on how many bottles of the stuff people could buy, because apparently people literally would bring along suitcases and fill ‘em up with SKL. Turkey Hill literally ran out and other people didn’t get the chance to buy SKL, which wasn’t fair.

    There was also a talent show which most of the people in CTY went to. Most of the RAs went because they had to bring their halls to dinner (some had their day off) but most of the teachers didn’t for some reason. The talent show was very amusing to watch with students performing Korean songs, and RAs doing songs like “Single Ladies” and “Old McDonald.” There was also an RA and teachers dance-off. I think that was a tie. I didn’t think that the talent show would be anything but boring, but I was wrong, and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

    The last day of CTY was very sad and many people were crying. I can totally understand. I was a little reluctant to go to CTY because I thought that it would kind of be like summer school, but I was completely and utterly wrong! I loved my experience at CTY and had loads of fun - three weeks was just too short! I hope to return to CTY and take a course as cool as Philosophy of the Mind and with as extraordinary instructors!

 Helen just moved from Connecticut (or was it NY State?) to Boston, MA.

Just the consideration of starting a fresh school year in a new school can leave the body in abeyance and drown the mind in many hopes and doubts. Not knowing what to anticipate, the mind then constructs expectations and desires based frankly on imagination and previous experiences. These hopes and anticipations swim freely around in our heads until reality eventually proves them right or wrong. Once again I, who am about to enter my fifth school in the past seven years, have a pool-full of these expectations.

      I cannot say that these hopes and doubts are different from my previous ones – to make new friends, fit in at school, understand in class, and to not get in trouble – however, they are no longer fears but rather things that are mandatory. Being a “new kid” many times before, adapting and accommodating in a new environment is not difficult, but not necessarily easy either. All schools are different and have their own special atmosphere that takes patience and skill to fit into. Also, each school has its own traditions and individuality so I look forward to discovering what they are.

      Besides social life, which is what every new kid worries about the most, we come to school to learn. In eighth grade, I expect to learn more in algebra, World War I and II, biology and chemistry, more Latin vocabulary and roots, and further SAT vocabulary words. Also, getting to know the new teachers can be fun and uncovering their ways of teaching can be interesting to compare to my previous discoveries.

      Finally, the most abhorrent part in starting a new school is finding my way around the actual building. Unlike my old school that had a California-styled campus (many separate buildings that are connected with small paths and are very open to the environment), my new school is all one big, enormous building. I doubt that I will be successful in making my way around in this structure in the first week so I’m going to need a map.

      Commencing a new school is not an easy task, nor is it a hard task but a task that requires skill and careful thinking; this I already mastered through my seven years of practice. However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have to struggle during the first few weeks because I still have the pool of hopes and doubts to deal with until reality catches up to them.

Nerf Gun War  

by Jonathan Ju 

      There are two guns that have changed the interface of Nerf war. They are the Raider CS-35 and Nerf Dart Tag Strike Force Pistol. They are similar and different in many ways. However, they both will bring your team to victory no matter what situation you are in. You need them, and here’s why.        

      Both of these guns fire the same darts; they are in the Streamline class because of the smooth shooting. (Another class uses a suction cup at the end of the dart and there are also whistlers, which make a certain sound while being shot.) They both have some comfortable grips to stabilize your firing. In addition, you have to have some kind of small movement to reload each gun for every bullet. However, both guns ensure decent shooting speeds, while still firing accurately and up to 35 feet and over! They both possess a lot of recoil, meaning you have to aim your sights back to your target every time, which may sometimes mean being bombarded with darts if you are not moving. You probably will be, though. Both guns also give what I call a ‘run and gun’ feeling. This basically means that you fire at your target, and take off instead of keeping your position. To put it simply, both guns are amazing at offense. Now, there is one small thing in terms of colors that is a tradition throughout Nerf gun history: it is that every Nerf gun has at least some orange on it. The guns almost have the same design with the dots, lines and knobs that stretch across the frame. Most guns work the same way: you pull back either a grip, a knob or a lever, reloading the next bullet and pushing it back into a chamber. This chamber contains a spring, which is activated when you press the trigger. Thus, shooting a soft, but deadly dart through the barrel to find its target, you can help win the battle.        

      Both guns also have many different aspects: the Raider’s dual grips allow you to shoot the next dart right after the one before, since the reload system is built into the grip. So you just pull the handle to reload. The Strike Force Pistol has very different design, though. It has a grip that allows one hand to go over the other, thus allowing more accurate, long-range, slow shots, instead of having medium short-range shots that the Raider has. In addition, the Strike Force packs more of a punch than its cousin the Raider.         

      Also, both guns have a very different reload system. The Raider’s fast reload system allows you to just pull a grip, loading a deadly dart. However, it comes with a price of being noisy, so it will raise the risk of blowing your cover and gives away your position. The Strike Force is very different: it requires you to manually load the bullets one by one, but it is quite silent.        

      Another important factor of every Nerf gun is their size and weight. This determines how fast you will move, and if it is easy to hit the target. First up is the Raider: its drum magazine is bulky and heavy, so movement is uncomfortable, and pretty slow. This can determine the outcome of the whole battle, for getting the head start is the best. The Strike Force on the other hand is light and small, making it easy to travel far and quick with it. Size does not mean the end of the battle though.  

      Both guns are the perfect combination for each other. People who are new and ready for Nerf, you need these guns. Every newcomer will find it very easy to adapt to the simple instructions about how to use both guns. Each makes up for what the other gun doesn’t have: the Strike Force has accurate slow shooting, while the Raider is fast and pinpoints its shooting. Both guns might seem dull when you hear about them, but when you get your hands on them they are amazing. They proved to be amazing when I shot my multiple friends, running away from the target I had hit before, and surprising the next enemy after the other. Then shooting the last enemy, I jumped off my friend’s trampoline and shot dual Strike Force Pistols, in mid-air, hitting my target. That shows how deadly both guns can be, with the Strike Force’s accurate and silent firing, to the fast, short loud, firing of the Raider.  You need to get these two guns, to bring you, but more importantly your team, victory and fun. Excitement is coming toward your local toy stores.  

 Stephen Crane - The Natural World

 Stephen Crane is one of the most celebrated authors in the United States. He created masterpieces as detailed and realistic as they were recognizable. He was skilled in many types of description, such as his masterful depiction of street life apparent in “Maggie: Girl of the Streets”, as well as describing battle in “The Red Badge of Courage” so realistically that veterans thought that he had to have had battle experience. However, perhaps his greatest type of description was his unparalleled skill in depicting nature and the natural world, as well as the animals that inhabit it. In varying ways, Crane employed figures of speech to portray nature as she is: powerful, irreducible, empty of any interactive capability; he also explored the human tendency to personify nature. With regard to animals, Crane possessed a piercing ability to empathize with pets and farm animals, as well as wild animals, and portrays both pets’ thoughts, and the effect of wild animals, with deftness.  

      Crane especially liked to use figures of speech to describe nature.  One prime example would be “The Blue Hotel”, whose characters battle a fierce Nebraska snowstorm.  Holed up in the hotel, the characters hear something beating on the walls “like a spirit tapping” (8, Blue). This is an example of Crane using a simile to help describe nature. However, he also used metaphors help describe the natural environment. One example of this is when he describes flakes of snow being swept southwards with “the speed of bullets” (28, Blue), and when he likened the Earth to a “whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb” (39, Blue). The Earth isn’t really completely like that, but when one reads this, they get a sense of how chaotic and bleak the winter in Nebraska can be. In “The Dark Brown Dog”, when the child beats the dog, he uses personification: the dog doesn’t try to “look to be a martyr” (5, Dark). The dog cannot look like a martyr in the sense that we can, but in using that metaphor, we can imagine how the dog related to his owner, and we can gain a better understanding of the intended tone for that particular scene.  

      As mentioned, Crane used personification to aid his depictions of nature. The waves in his story, “The Open Boat”, had a type of “terrible grace” (2, Open) to their movements. Here, he used personification to help readers better visualize the waves, and the ocean on which this story takes place. Also, another example of this was when a wave “moved forward, huge, furious, implacable” (25, Open). The wave isn’t really furious, but personifying it like that helps visualize the moment, as well as aids us to see the wave.  Similarly, he wrote that a wave “fairly swallowed the dingey” (25, Open). The wave didn’t really swallow the boat - it doesn’t have a mouth. However, it helps to show how and where the boat went, and reveals just how large the wave was in comparison to the boat.

      Crane also possessed an uncanny ability to portray the thoughts and intentions of domesticated animals. He portrayed the dog in his story “The Dark Brown Dog” as being humble, forgiving, and loyal. He fully expressed the extent of dog’s “devotion to the child” (Dark, 6), as being “a sublime thing” (Dark, 6). Here we can imagine how Crane related to an animal’s thoughts, intentions, and feelings.

   In “The Third Violet”, a love story set in upstate New York, and later in Manhattan, Crane has ample opportunity to paint the portraits of pets and farm animals.  A beautiful young lady, Ms. Fanhall, flirting with a painter, Will Hawker, meets a team of oxen lumbering through a meadow as she stands talking to the oxen driver’s son.  She inquires about the beasts as Crane gives these adjectives: “humble, submissive, and toilsome” (57, Third).

    Ms. Fanhill and the painter’s father, Mr. Hawker, then get into a philosophical discussion about the animals; they discuss their wellbeing, as well as their happiness amidst unending toil.   Ms. Fanhill and old man Hawker are “meditating” (61) on the oxen, and asking questions like “are they happy?” (61): these could be Crane’s thoughts towards animals, embedded in his fiction.  When Hollenden (a friend of Hawker’s) and Ms. Fanhill see Stanley, the Hawker family dog, running by, they both praise him, and discuss at length Hawker’s treatment of the dog.  As mentioned, deep kinship between man and beast also occurs in “The Dark Brown Dog”, when the child befriends a dog.  The child and the dog become very close, with the child “championing” the dog.  This perhaps shows Crane’s feelings about animal and human relationships, and their meaning.

      Crane was also extremely skillful in writing about wild animals. He could both describe their physical looks to the last hair, as well as relate them to the story, making them a valuable asset in his writing career. One example is the seagulls from his short story, “The Open Boat”. He describes them so masterfully that they seem to be not in the book, amongst the pages, but trying to land on your head. For example, he describes one that flew “parallel to the boat and did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-like fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed upon the captain’s head”. It seems quite easy to see that bird in your head, making those odd-looking hops, just … looking at you. However, Crane also used wild animals to tie into the story, frequently using them as portents to show when something might happen. For example, the same gulls in “The Open Boat” struck the crew as “as being somehow grewsome and ominous”. Soon  after this, the dingey sinks.   Crane both describes wild animals very well, and uses them skillfully to foreshadow other events.

      Stephen Crane was one of the greatest writers in U.S. history, if not the history of the world. He wrote masterpieces, and will forever be immortalized by his work. And so will his methods of writing: his personification of nature, his describing nature with expert constructions and nimble use of parts of speech, his understanding of and the describing of domesticated animals skillfully, and both describing wild animals and using them as portents – all these methods bring insights that are now passed on to a more enlightened world.

2011 CTY Reflection

by Helen (Hanyu) Liu

Fourteen young students entered bravely into the unknown classroom. With their innocent eyes wide open, they were bewildered by the brick walls and the dim atmosphere in which they were suppose to spend eight hours a day for the next three weeks. The sunlight that was peering through the narrow windows near the roof of the room filled the atmosphere with a glimmer that lowered everyone’s happy mood. Then the lights flickered on. The room was showered by a warm, artificial brilliance that clearly stated: this was a classroom. 

      I once was scared of that room. I did not know what was going on nor what would go on once I was in there, but that feeling of frustration did not last long enough for me to ponder upon. Two hours into the lesson, laughter already deafened me, and I was proud to say that I had contributed to that sound of joy. The class started off with a few icebreakers and I got to know each of my classmates. Even though I had already “broken ice” with the eleven girls that I shared my hall with, I felt like I was getting closer to them. After a few rounds of the Name Game, the lesson soon flowed into an activity where we would write a sentence, and pass it along to the next person to contribute to our story. We each had wicked minds and facetious thoughts so we decided to write them down on paper making that part of the story our own. Few occasional snickers filled the room. In the end, most of our stories concluded with death and a fat kid named Bobby who died because of his obesity. The teachers got enough of our personalities that day.

      As the days passed, the once shy and timid fourteen of us were now increasingly fearless in both our writing and speech. We began developing voice in our essays and successfully built a personal narrative.  We also developed an idea that it was funny to blurt out a word randomly in class. Most of the time, the word was “kumquat” and after its many uses, the word was no longer random, therefore, it lost its purpose.

      We also became very close to the teachers: close enough to give them very cool nicknames. At least it was cool in our perspective. Our teacher, Ms. Deonne was changed to a simple “DD” or was it spelled “De De”?  We are still arguing over that. Our T.A was changed from Ryan to Fry Rye, but after acknowledging that he didn’t like to be fried, we changed it to UN-fry Rye. He liked that better. 

      Wherever we, my friends and I, walked around campus, eyes stared and heads turned.  We were like a magnet, attracting all the attention of the whole campus and even a few teachers. It was not our amiable personalities that brought us this fame, but rather our voices. Certainly mentioned among others that we were the chattiest kids that they have ever met, soon, we were known as the “loud mob of girls that piss people off”, but we tried to ignore those remarks. My friends and I would randomly wave to people and RAs that we had never met before, and we completely abandoned the “Don’t Talk to Strangers” rule. However, at CTY, everyone is family. 

      It was not very hard to make friends when you live five feet away from ten other friendly, maybe too friendly, girls who take the same class as you. By the end of the first day, we went everywhere together and became BFFLs (Best Friends for Life). Then there were the three other boys in my Creative Nonfiction course. Their personalities took more time to break into. They often did not talk, contribute or socialize. Outsiders might have thought of them as socially ill, however, we eventually boiled up their friendly side. 

      Besides the fun and social times, CTY is about learning and adopting new ideas.  I remember having difficulties in adapting to the view of someone else. In class, we often have activities where we write in the point of view of someone else. It would always take me forever to start the thinking process of another person’s brain and learn to write from it in less than thirty minutes. We often would be separated into groups of four, and built upon each other to come up with an essay from someone else’s perspective. One time, I was in the group with two other girls and one boy. We had to write in the view of a person under the title of Miss Malaysia. After writing and editing the piece, we thought it would be funny for the boy to read as Miss Malaysia and in the end, we thought right. It ended up being a fantastic presentation; in addition, the boy was later known as Miss Malaysia for the next three weeks. 

      During the course of Creative Nonfiction, we wrote essay after essay. Our fingers were bruised and they throbbed from the grip of the pen at the end of the session. We wrote personal narratives, travel pieces, newspaper articles, social critiques, memoirs, and poems. After each piece that we bled all our efforts into, the teacher made copies and distributed them out to the entire class. We then had to fix, edit and comment on the thirteen other works that we received. After hours of reading and correcting, we would form into two groups and share our thoughts about the others’ pieces. Some remarks were hurtful but we learned to fix our essays from them. 

      Down time was something we didn’t have a lot of - it usually occurred before bedtime and during the weekends. However, down time was our period for brainstorming the essays that we had to write the next day. Occasionally, my friends and I would gather into one room and enjoy some food, music and play some cards. These times were few. Most of the time, we would call our families, get ready for bed, or go to the bookstores to refill our necessities. I cannot recall one down time where I was rushed or bored because down time was treasured and should not be wasted. 

      Revision and change were something that my essays needed, something that my thought processes needed, but something that CTY has no need for. CTY was perfect. I enjoyed every second at the Center for Talented Youth and would like it to stay the same forever.