I think my proudest moment throughout middle school was when I was inducted into Honor Society. That really marked my success that far and really made me feel important. Honor Society made me a better student and a harder worker.

When I was first inducted, they had this big ceremony with all of our family and friends there to watch. Our names were called and we had to stand on risers and hold a lit candle. I was in the way back, because I’m tall, but I felt like I was front and center.

After the ceremony, my parents surprised me with a bucay of flowers and a signed card from them and my older brother.  I was crying because I was really not ready for something like that. It completely caught me off guard.

When I went to stand on the risers I was in the way back but I felt like I was front-and-center. We held candles that symbolized leadership and parents took pictures of us in glowing candle light.

This year, at the ceremony, I was the president. Meaning I really was front-and-center. I had to stand in front of everyone and speak about leadership and to welcome everyone.

This really was the best day of my life. It was the happiest and the saddest, but definitely the best.

Throughout my years of middle school I have accomplished many goals and dreams I have set for myself. Straight A’s and being athletically and academically involved at Mariner where the two main goals that I set for myself that I accomplished.          

From sixth grade to eighth grade, I have been an A or B student. Without the help of my teacher and the staff at Mariner I would not be able to say that. I have always been on Honor Roll and the faculty noticed my success and rewarded me which makes me want to succeed even more.

Because I am so successful at getting good grades, I am making more cautious decisions to improve my life. For Example, instead of getting involved in violence and some bad choices people make, I take the time to think about what I am about to do and think about how it will affect me in the future. Without good grades and the willingness to succeed, I would be lost.

I am very involved in my school and community. I play softball for Mariner which makes me a stronger athlete and I really make great friends in the process. I am the President of the Honor Society here at Mariner. Being President is really good practice of branching out and trying new things while helping the community. It teaches you how to be a leader and how to speak in front of a large sum of people while being comfortable, which if I am going to be a teacher I am going to have to master.

Mariner Middle School really changed my way of thinking and helped me grow into a strong individual. I am proud to say that I am a former Mariner Middle School student.

Middle School has been filled with great memories, too many to fit in this one writing assignment. From Dorney Park to Shorebirds games, Honor Society to friends, Middle school was definitely fun.

In sixth grade, the band took a trip to Dorney Park. The bus ride there and back was the best. I was sitting in a seat with my friend Kayleigh and my other friends Michael and Brandon sat in the seat next to us. We joked around and rode every rollercoaster in the park. There was one rollercoaster I remember over all the others; the Voodoo. The voodoo was a rollercoaster that was a ride that shot out of a tunnel and flew straight up in the air to a twist then back in the tunnel backwards to do it again. The instructor said the ride went from 0 to 70 miles per hours in less than 3 seconds. It was so much fun.

Shorebirds games were rewards we won for good behavior. This year, since we were in eighth grade, we go to go to a night game. The game didn’t end until nine o’clock so I was really tired but my friends kept me awake by screaming at the silly games they had on the field.

I am in the Honor Society at Mariner and it has a lot of good memories. The most memorable was the Lock-In because we stayed at the school all night and played sports. The only problem was I spent most of my time in the nurse’s office lying down because I got sick. But, that night was so much fun I played hockey, soccer and dodge ball all at about three-in-the-morning.

My friends were the best throughout middle school. My taste in people I trust changed as well. In sixth grade, I had friends who I couldn’t trust at all. I was in constant fear that they would tell my secrets if I told them anything. But, in seventh grade, a made friends with athletes that I could trust and have fun with and made them feel comfortable talking to me because they could trust me. My seventh grade friends are still my eighth grade friends and I hope we can be friends forever.

Middle School was a great experience and I wouldn’t change anything about the way I lived through it.

Lucy Norton is a typical teenager who lives with her father in California. Everything was going great until her father was remarried and Lucy is forced to live with her new step-mom and two new step-sisters in New York. Her new school is no walk-in-the-park either. She now attends a High School where basketball is the certain of attention for popularity, which isn’t really a problem for Lucy being she is in love with the sport. But as cliché as it is, she has a crush on the star.

Connor, the school’s basketball star, is the most popular guy in school. He has everything, the girl that every guy is jealous of, the bonus of being good a sport, and the looks that every girl wants to date. Until, his girlfriend dumps him for a college guy. Now he is dateless and the dance is coming. He takes one look at the new girl talking about basketball and he wants to go with her.

Sam is the next Picasso. His paintings are marvelous and everyone, including the new girl Lucy, is in love with them. I guess they are good considering his mom is a famous art gallery director. He can’t help but notice the new girl, there’s just something about her.

At this point Lucy is already dating Connor but kind of likes Sam. Who will Lucy choose? It isn’t until an art showing with Sam that makes Lucy really think, Sam or Connor? Read “If I have a Wicked Stepmother, Where’s my Prince?” and find out.

if i can’t do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don’t want
to do

it’s not the same thing
but it’s the best i can
do

if i can’t have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i’ve got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

since i can’t go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn’t lateral

when i can’t express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that’s why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

reflection: I really like how this poem is an opinion. The way she thinks should be handled in a situation and she doesn’t care what other people think but her own thoughts. I love the  second stanza because I feel the same way sometimes and I think I might follow her example.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Reflection: I think this poem is very well written. I speaks of how journeys and long travels are not rare but they are a struggle and are very hard to overcome. There will be obstacles in your life but the only way to survive is to overcome them which is exactly what this poem is about.

Cinquain Poem:

Hope

Loving and True

 Teaching the World to Smile

Rests its Shoulder on happiness

Hope

Limerick:

There once was a young lad from Nepal,

Who dreamed every night of baseball.

He would step up to bat,

With his cape and his hat

And hit the ball past the wall.

Free Verse:

The laugh so sweet like honey

The picture of perfection

the smile of grace

But all can change in a world like this

the laugh is now sour

The picture is now blurry

the smile is now faded

I worry and fret for the years to come back

But how can they if we are looking at the future?

Haiku:

Love is the best thing

Love can be the worst thing ever

But love is still love

Free Verse:

Happiness is a wonderful feeling

Friend of Love and Hope

Never concurred

Never beaten

But desired and savored

Reflection: This poem really made me think. In a way, this poem is quite sad because the poem secretly tells a story of a man who fights to the death in war and right as he is dieing, he hears the victory off in the distance. I think this poem is about putting your all into something to get a good result. He risked his life for whatever the war was for and died because of it, but at least he died a hero.

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Reflection: To be honest, the first time I heard this poem I didn’t understand it at all. But then when my teacher started to explain it a little better I finally understood that this poem is about Earth. The first thought that came to my head was my friend Haley who loves nature because I pictured her in the poem. The poem is how the Earth protects us and how it is like the pillow on which we sleep at night.

Virginia Woolf is the most innovative and depressing author I have ever heard of, but she is the most honorable and significant author of the twentieth century. Her life was filled with ups and downs, but through those dark times she was able to write inspirational masterpieces.

Virginia Woolf was born as Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25, 1882. Her parents were Sir Leslie Stephens, the noble author, and Julia Prinsep Stephens, a famous beauty. Sadly, Virginia had a number of mental breakdowns throughout her life time making it almost unbearable for her to continue living. Woolf committed suicide on March 28, 1941 at the age of 59 years. Unfortunately, Virginia’s skeletonised body was not found until April 18^th, about 3 weeks after her suicide.

Growing up, Virginia Woolf had always had a full house. Since her parents both have been married before, the Woolf house contained children of three marriages. Julia had three children from her first marriage and Leslie had one child, who was institutionalized in 1891.  Leslie and Julia together had four children. The Stephens woman came from a long line of beauties, so growing up Virginia was a model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters such as, Edward Burne-Jones.  The sudden death of her mother caused Virginia’s first mental breakdown. The death caused her to spend long periods of time in her room either reading or writing.

At age 13, Virginia’s mother, Julia, died suddenly causing Virginia’s first mental breakdown. Because of her breakdown, she was able to create for herself the perfect conditions to become the greatest writing mind of the 20^th century. While her stories contain themes of  abuse and neglect, she wrote based on her life. Woolf was sexually abused by her half-brother, Gerald Duckworth, from the time she was 12 to 21 years of age. She wrote diary entrees and letters of the abuse to her parents. Even though her sisters confirmed the abuse, her parents still didn’t believe her. The abuse had effects on Virginia when she was older and more mature. She got married to Leonard Woolf, the Jewish writer, on April 18, 1912, and even though she loved him dearly she had said “I feel no physical attraction to you. When you kiss me I feel like a solid rock”, but Virginia did not feel the same way about Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, though. She had sexual relations with her for 10 years.

With being a child of eight and being abused, Virginia Woolf never went to a real school. Since her father was highly educated, he decided that he would be the one to teach her and her sisters while the boys of the family went to regular school. Once Virginia was old enough, she studied at King’s College in Cambridge. After Cambridge, Woolf went on to be a tutor at Morley College in London, England.

At last, Woolf started to dazzle the mind of authors and critics by reviewing the Time’s Library Supplement in 1905. Since 1908, Virginia Woolf had been writing her first novel, The Voyage Out, which was not published until 1915. Since then, she wrote nine novels and four short stories. Her books were mostly based on femininity and deception, and some had tiny doses of her life mixed in. Virginia had written many diary entrees and notes that she included in the plot of many of her stories, one being Ethel Smyth, January, 1941.

Virginia had always had a love for writing. Leonard and Virginia were so in love with literature that they bought a printing press in 1917 to take printing as a hobby. The Woolf’s created the Hogarth Press named after their house in 1921, and soon would be the publishing company for Virginia Woolf’s books.

Virginia Woolf is most famous for her novel Mrs. Dalloway, but receives a lot of recognition for her novels: Jacob’s Room and A Room of Ones’ Own. Woolf did write poetry, but her poetry was not as popular and as-known as other writers today. While some may think her writing is dark and depressing, her writing represents the reality of life and how some just don’t have it as well as others.

Mrs. Dalloway is about a woman named Clarissa Dalloway who roams London one morning to prepare herself for a party she is hosting that evening. The day reminds her of her youth and makes her wonder about her choice of husband, Richard Dalloway, while she was going to marry Peter Walsh, the demanding ex-fiancé. But while she thinks, she is saddened by the fact that she had no option to be with Sally Seton for whom she felt strongly about. All throughout the day, Mrs. Dalloway is thinking and wondering while Warren Smith, a veteran of World War 1 is suffering deferred traumatic stress and hallucinations, spends the day with his wife in the park. After his hallucinations of his friend, Evans, who died in the war, he commits suicide by jumping out of an apartment window. In the end, Mrs. Dalloway’s party was a slow success and she meets characters from the book and hears about Smith’s death. She gradually comes to admire the act of this stranger-which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his own happiness.

From this synopsis, you can clearly see Virginia Woolf’s life entangled in with the plot; from, committing suicide to falling in love for another woman. Her stories felt so real because she added her life to the reality.