National Day on Writing Submissions: "The Three Little Freshmen/Piglets", "Bridge Day", "Time Machines", and "Professions of Love",

On Monday, 10/21, and Tuesday, 10/22, the HWC celebrated the National Day on Writing. Students were invited to write and submit pieces to be published on the blog. Each week, we will publish four of these submissions in one blog post. This week's pieces are by  Declan G., Mr. Steve Brown (Physics teacher!), Nina O., and Mutasim Y.
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"The Three Little Freshmen" by Declan G.

There were three little Freshmen and they all were friends. One was artsy, one was into sports, and one was into school. One day there was this big, nasty, evil Senior. He was the worst! He would send Freshmen to the pool on the roof. He didn't like the three little Freshmen- no, indeed! The first one tried to dress older, but was found out due to the way he walked through the hall. The second tried to act tough, but the Senior was on the varsity team so it didn't work. But the third one got away. How, you may ask? Well, the Senior was bad at English so he had to go to the the Herndon Writing Center, where he was tutored by the third little Freshman.

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"Bridge Day" by Mr. Steve Brown, Physics teacher

On October 19, I traveled to West Virginia to be an observer of that state’s 34^th Bridge Day celebration.

Bridge Day marks the spanning of the New River Gorge in Fayetteville. The bridge was dedicated on October 22, 1977, and each year since, the bridge is closed to traffic on the third Saturday in October. At the dedication, the New River Gorge Bridge was the world’s longest single-span arch bridge, a title it held for many years.

Before the construction of the bridge, it would take up to forty-five minutes for a car to cross the gorge, estimated to be over 300 million years old! On Saturday, a resident of the area told me she remembers crossing the gorge, and if a car was caught behind a slow-moving loaded truck, crossing could take up to two hours!!

Visitors on Bridge Day may participate in or observe various activities, and among which, are BASE jumping skydiving, rappelling, highlining or ziplining.

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 "The Time Machine" by Nina O.

The ability to go back in time and change anything I wanted seemed a little far-fetched. When I was gifted with the time machine, my whole life was permanently altered. The time machine was given to me by a mysterious man claiming to be from the future. He was dressed in all white and spoke with an accent I couldn’t decipher. He gave me specific instructions and rules that I had to follow.

“You are given only two days to go to where you please. After your second trip, you are expected to return or you will be trapped at your final location,” he said.

Given this opportunity, I had to think very wisely. I decided to go back in time to change the way I started school; this was around kindergarten. When school first started, I was shy and afraid to make friends. Going back in time, I told my younger self that being friendly and making friends would be worth it. When returning back home I noticed that my decision to go back completely changed the way I grew up. The impact wasn’t necessarily the best. I was being put into situations that I couldn’t really handle.

Since I had one last trip, I decided to go back and prevent myself from changing anything. Life is supposed to be spontaneous and things happen for a reason. From this experience, I learned things happen for a reason. From this experience, I learned to just live life with no regrets.

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"What I've Always Wanted to Say is..." By Mutasim Y.

What I’ve always wanted to say is a lot of positive things.  I have always wanted to talk about anything.  Three words that I’ve always wanted to say are“I Love You”.  It always makes me feel lovely when I say it to someone.  It’s really kind to tell someone "I love you" because it makes them feel lovely and smile.  I always say I love you to my lovely family and friends.  I makes me happy every time I say that.  It’s wonderful to make people smile with the words "I love you". 

Also, I have always wanted to say I am thankful for everything.  You have to be thankful for your life, your family and friends.  There is no reason that you can’t be thankful. You always have to be thankful for everything, because you have good luck.  I have always been thankful for everything for everything.  I can’t say no to it.

"Rebellion Against the Robot" by Adrenaline

When I was younger, I was just like everyone else. Everyone’s moms controlled them, picked their outfits, brushed their hair. We were all exactly what our moms wanted us to be, on the inside almost as much as on the outside. As we grew older other girls began making their own choices, but I was still a robot, unable to separate from my controller. They listened to the radio stations they wanted to listen to, wore the clothes they wanted to wear, and started to develop their own person. Most of all, they made vital life decisions on how to act. I stayed robotic, with my mother picking out my outfits, choosing what music and radio shows I listened to, small things like that. But it wasn’t only the small things. I remember in third grade I was having friend troubles, just little fights here and there, same as everyone else. When I told my mom, she gave me some advice, and just like a robot I followed that advice and proceeded to tell my three best friends that I could no longer be friends with them. They were great people and of course that didn’t last long but if they hadn’t been so forgiving then I might have really lost my closest friends! But even after that the robot still controlled me.

Throughout middle school I stayed robotic. I dated a couple boys and befriended people that my mother would have approved of. I got good grades and the classes that weren’t As or Bs I worked even harder and stayed after school for. I never talked back to teachers, even if they were rude to me. There was no “me”, there was only “Mini-her”.

By ninth grade I learned it was best to act nice in front of her, but I acted how I wanted when she left the room. I learned how to control my self so I looked like a robot on the outside, but I was a full on rebellion on the inside. I’d sit up straight, act normal. Remember my “Yes please”’s and “no thanks you”’s. It was weird because most people described their home a place to be themselves without a fear of judgement, when my home was just the opposite. When I’m home, I’m a scarecrow, and my mom is the farmer. Let me tell you just how uncomfortable that pole is.

The HWC Celebrates the National Day on Writing!

On Monday, 10/21, and Tuesday, 10/22, the Herndon Writing Center celebrated the National Day on Writing. Over the course of two days, we hosted approximately 40 students and teachers in the writing center as they wrote on silly prompts, such as "Re-write a classic fairy tale as though it were set at HHS", or "You are a pirate. Describe the best day of your life." Additionally, Ms. Wright's English classes participated within their English classes. Because we have received so many submissions, we will publish four short pieces in one blog post each week.

Thanks for celebrating writing with us, Herndon!!!

The HWC Attends the Third Annual Secondary Schools Writing Center Conference at GMU!

On Friday, October 11^th, 13 of our 33 Herndon Writing Center tutors attended the Third Annual Secondary Schools Writing Center Conference at George Mason University. This year, the HWC is pleased to announce that eight of our tutors presented sessions on tutoring best practices to over 280 conference participants from 34 area high schools, middle schools, and colleges. Of the 34 schools attending, Herndon is one of five high schools whose tutors were selected to present.

Please congratulate the following students on their outstanding presentations:

Glowing, Growing, and Transforming through Tutoring:  Emily Weeks, Laura Bentley, Sam Chanesman, & Mariam Ansari

Transformations Through Word Choice: T.J. Yang

The Crossroads of Tutoring and Writing: Danny Vedova, Jean Jeon, & Lydia Coyner

The HWC thanks our Hornet family for their continued support. Be sure to stop by and visit us in room 203! Happy writing!

"A Recipe for Disaster: The Super Senior Deluxe Surprise" by Wesley Meeks

            In this simple recipe that serves one senior the ingredients are easy to procure and every twelfth grader student is capable of making it. This concoction will knock you off your feet, give you high blood pressure, make you a nervous wreck, and leave you never wanting more!

Necessary Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon of an overwhelming schedule
• 2 tablespoons of anxiety
• 3 ½ cups of tears
• 1 ½ teaspoons of sleepless nights
• 1 ½ teaspoons of early mornings
• ¼ teaspoon of difficult classes
• ¾ cup of despair
• 1 ½ cups of pressure
• 4 college essays
• 5 college applications
• 1 ¼ cups of worries
• ¼ teaspoon of poor self esteem
• ½ a cup of college visits

Directions:

1) First, preheat the stress level to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2) In a large bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon of an overwhelming schedule, 2 tablespoons of anxiety, 3 ½ cups of tears and 1 ½ teaspoons of sleepless nights. Then set the bowl aside to brood for later use.

3) In another bowl mix together 1 ½ teaspoons of early mornings 1 ¼ cup of worries, 5 college applications and ¼ teaspoon of difficult classes until they create an overbearing and oppressive cream then beat in 4 college essays and mix well.

4) Next, stir ¾ cup of despair, ¼ teaspoon of poor self esteem, and 1 ½ cups of pressure then add in the mixture from the large bowl until they are will blended.

5) Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated stress levels then leave it out to cool for 30 minutes.

6) After the Super Senior Deluxe Surprise has cooled drizzle ½ a cup of college visits and your creation is ready to be served! 

"Desire" by Mr. Ret S. Im

Darkness.

A billion waves of energy lie dormant, their color a sullen brown.

A sudden light.

The waves rear up, their brilliant yellow chasing away the darkness within.

The light intensifies.

The waves speed through the air, daring to hope that they might know something other than darkness.

Then there is darkness.

The waves slow, not out of despair, but in the way a cat slows before pouncing. Their bright red colors are muted so as not to give them away.

The darkness is uneasy.

They will not give up. They deserve the right to the light.

The darkness knows it has messed up.

NOW!

With a determination honed by the want for more, the energy rear once more, their bright red colors creating a light that nothing can take away.

Could it be possible that the darkness cringed, cringed in the face of these beings?

Relentless. They beat away at the darkness, relentless. They fight for their very souls. What could stand against them?

Crack!

The darkness gives way, showering upon the waves nothing more than the world.

Yet it is all they need.

Such is man.

"Beggar" by Anonymous

The old lady looked horrible. She hadn’t taken a shower in over a year. Her hair was a mess. It was falling all over her face and looked dried up. Her cloths were old and ripped. The smell of rotten trash surrounded her. You could see bags under her eyes. She was sitting beside a wall holding a cup in her hand begging people for money as the walked by.

            “Spare some change? Please sir spare some change?”

            “Get off me you old hag. Touch me again and I will call the cops.”

            “Please, please sir I have nothing, just some change anything will do.”

The man looked at her then stared intently at her face for a while, then he bent down to look her in the eye.

            “You know people like you make me sick. Beggars bah. They should all just die. They wouldn’t be here if they just worked harder or paid attention or probably in your case, laid off the drugs.”

The woman was silent now. Not even looking the man in the face only at the ground.

            “People like me are the only people that should be alive. We work hard and paid attention. That’s why I actually have a job and a home. What’s your story huh? Probably the most popular girl in school? Or maybe you were the whore everyone came to, to try and get lucky with? You probably fell in love with some guy in high school, and ran away with him. Turned out you didn’t know him like you thought you did? I’m guessing he was a pimp and turned you into his “girl”. How many people did you sleep with huh?

 The man waited to see if she would answer. She never did.

            “I’m guessing you probably did drugs too? I wouldn’t know of course I’ve never done drugs. So I’m guessing that you eventually ran away and tried to go back to your normal life and that didn’t work out so here you are now. Just some lowlife beggar that can’t hold a job. Your pathetic, here take this.

The man threw a bunch of coins at the old lady and proceeded to walk away.

            “Thank you for your generosity sir.”

After a while the old lady did not speak, she just collected her coins and counted them. $2.13 she counted. She smiled looking at the coins.

            Time eventually passed and it had gotten dark. The old lady got up and started walking down the path until she came up upon a rickety building grey building. She went up the steps and went into the house.

            “Maria, how did it go?” A woman said to her

            The old lady said nothing to her, only give her the coins

The woman began to count the coins.

            “$2.13, I’ll make sure it all goes towards Laura.”

The old lady only nodded at the women then began to walk towards the door.

            “Maria,” the woman said. The old lady turned around to look at her. “ You know if I was your daughter I would be very proud of you. You should too. What you’re doing out there is a lot to put up with and it’s all so your girl gets to live a good life. You should be proud.”

The old lady said nothing just stared at the woman for a while.

            “Please take care of Laura,” the old lady said. She then opened the door and walked out.

            “Promise,” the woman said to herself.

The old lady stood in front of the building for a while. Then started walking back up the path to her spot. When she got there she sat down and began to beg.

            “Spare some change?”

"Medusa" by Noah West

Medusa

You are beautiful: with hair that glows, and eyes like water,

and any man who sees you falls in love.

and a man is sent by his family to earn your affections:

and another, and another and another.

Men with flowers and poems,

but you serve in the Goddess Athena’s temple:

you must, by oath, turn them all down.

One day, a man comes to your temple, and he is made of light, and sea,

but most importantly, he is made of power:

and you recognize him for what he is,

a god, a tempest,

he rages and rattles and destroys,

and you are left in the temple,

because you were a beautiful young woman, and your hair shone with light, and your eyes were like water,

but these are not weapons,

and you are nothing but rubble.

Your patron, Athena, Goddess of Wisdom,

sees what has happened, and gives you power.

She gives you hair that slithers, and eyes like stone,

and you are rebuilt.

You run away from the ruined temple, and you live in a cave, alone.

And then a man is sent to kill you:

and another, and another, and another.

Men with swords and spears,

but you were blessed by the Goddess Athena,

and you must, to survive, turn them to stone.

You leave them as rubble: you have that power, now.

Until one day,

a man comes,

and he is filled with light and sky,

and, most importantly, armed with power.

And this man looks at your defenses, sneers at you for protecting yourself,

as he steps on the crumbled dust of the men before him,

dares to enter your home,

and he is a tempest.

he rages and rattles and destroys,

and he leaves you in ruin,

and you are nothing but rubble

again.

Medusa 

is not the story of a hero conquering evil,

but a greek tragedy.

do not step

on the ruins of the woman

who was destroyed,

rebuilt,

and brought to rubble again.

"I was Born" by Naomi Jean Lewis

I was born

            I was born

                        I was born with darkdarkdark circles under my eyes and an answer on my tongue

            I was damned from the first time I heard the word “Deadline”

            I was damned from the first time I heard the word “Due date”

                       

                        D is for the grade I don’t allow myself to bring home

            D is for diving, which hails the start of breathing again

D is for dumb dumb dumbdumbdumbdumbdumb

No. I’m not. Delete that thought, turn the page and try again-

                        C is for crimson pen slashes on math tests that I can’t bring home

            C is for careful, tiptoeing around my parents

C is for cheerleading, my release and adopted family

B is for ‘Be All You Can Be!’

            B is for be better, be better, be best

                        B is for Believing that there was nothing else

                       

                        A is for Achievement! A is for Achievement!

           

            A is for always tired,

                         always aching,

                         always alone.

A is for almost done.

"The Sounds of Silence" by Lola Lane

                                                                       

When I was a freshman, I was terrified of writing. But not just writing; I was afraid of writing wrong. When I was a sophomore in the writing center, it was a little too easy to hold back on what I really wanted to say. I wasn’t censoring myself, but I thought that what I had to say was not important, or, more importantly, not worth any one’s time. As I enter my third year in the writing center, I can tell that I am different. I realized that you don’t have to be the most interesting man in the world to say something. Every voice recorded in a written piece is a step towards a new idea or discovery. Anything shared with another can cause a collaboration, or plant the seed that blossoms into something no one even thought could happen. As I enter my senior year, it is plain to see that writing is a medium that is powerful in an overlooked way. When Carlos Fuentes stated, “Writing is a struggle against silence,” I like to think that he came to the nirvana of writing that I just have slowly began to grasp.

My first year as a writing center tutor scared me to an extreme degree. I was awkward, well more awkward than now, a little over-eager, but mostly scared. I was scared to say the wrong thing, write something dumb, or truly expose myself to my classmates. I worked my way through every writing assignment like a zombie walking mindlessly to his prey. I added just the right amount of cutesy, age-appropriate ideas, and never found myself straying from the image that I pre-fabricated for the eyes of the public. The central issue was that I didn’t believe in what I was saying, and I couldn’t fight the silence that was stacking up in my soul, acting as a blockade against what I wanted to put on the paper. No one was going to call me of this reverie. The only person who could save me was my self, and I was too tightly cocooned in silence to emerge with my identity.

It wasn’t until my junior year, and my second year in the writing center, that I began to see that everyone has something to say, and maybe what I had to say was worth listening to. I began to find my niche in the writing center, something that I had been too scared and inexperienced to do before. I became present which made the tutoring easier, and I stopped rushing through any possible action, or opportunity for dissatisfaction for the tutee. The fight I put up against the silence was a mere soldier, but, nonetheless, it was a start. Writing didn’t get easier. In fact, the difficulty of it resulted in many pages of estranged doodles and unfinished stories. When I thought I was trying to please someone else, I would stop writing. I wanted my work to be raw. I wanted it to be a mirror of me; a voice that was inaudible to any ear but visible to every eye. Slowly, I learned when to take my time, and when to push myself to break the fixture of silence that flowed openly in my mind.

Maybe it’s because I am a senior and I am becoming more sappy and sentimental as the countdown to graduation nears, but writing has come to mean so much more to me than I ever could have imagined when I walked into my freshman English class. In a way, writing is life. And not just because it is a strong media for news, or that it gives English teachers satisfaction to be able to teach what they love. Writing enables me to have a voice. I may not be physically shouting from the rooftops, or changing the world by taking actions right this moment, but, in a way, I think writing lets me be me, and that’s life-changing. The silence I once embraced is the very parameters that I struggle to break free from now. Although I look back at my sophomore self, a scared weakling in the writing center, I understand I have only just started on this confusing maze of finding my style, voice, and personality. For all I know, my future self is re-reading this essay right now, and is laughing about how naïve I was, and how I really had no idea how to write. What my future self thinks does not concern me at present. The only spark of inspiration right now is the fact that I have begun to put up a fight against the shroud of silence that in the past has put a damper on my ideas. I may not have yet been successful in translating the noise that reverberates in my mind on to paper, but I’m trying to be true to myself, which is really all I can hope for. And that’s just fine with me.