"The Writing Center Family" by JK Rowling

After being accepted into Advanced Composition last year, I was excited to be a part of the Herndon Writing Center and to get more involved in my school. However, my excitement quickly changed into concern on the first day of class. It was sixth period and I started to become anxious walking down the English hallway.  My mind began to fill my head with nerve wracking thoughts. I started to think about how smart all the other tutors were going to be and how much they love writing. I didn’t want my writing to be compared to theirs and have it look like I didn’t belong there. It wasn’t long for these worries to float away. 

By the end of the class I was completely at ease and walking out the door with a smile on my face. I learned that the Writing Center was a safe place for me to share my writing and place I could go for encouragement. It was refreshing to be in a room with students that had the same interest as me. What I love most about the Herndon Writing Center is how welcoming the Writing Center family is, and I truly mean family. Just after my first class I felt a sense of belonging and like I was finally a part of something in my school; it was great to be a part of a team. Every tutor is happy to be tutoring (including me), creating a positive environment that I look forward to coming to everyday.

"This I Believe: Time" by Jessie

This December, Advanced Composition students studied, wrote, and recorded audio essays. Students wrote and recorded their own "This I Believe" essays inspired by the weekly This I Believe Podcast. 

“Your dad is in the hospital.” Realization struck as I sat down at the table in my grandmother’s house.  Earlier that day I had a sense something was wrong, something I could just feel. An eerie feeling when my mom told me that Jamie, my best friend Joanie’s mom, was going to pick me up after school.  When I stepped into Jamie’s car she said she didn’t know why my mom wasn’t home. At that point I finally was certain something bad had happened. There was no way my mom would ask her to pick me up and not clue Jamie in on what was happening.

When Jamie dropped me off at my grandma’s house instead of my own, I braced myself. As I walked through the door I was taken aback by how normal my grandma was acting. Trying to stay calm I asked what could possibly be going on when she told me then news. My dad had a seizure and that’s all the doctors seemed to know. My dad has his own electrical company and had been at a job when he started feeling weird, and collapsed. Fast forward 6 hours, and everyone was still so confused on why he had this seizure. It took almost five months for doctors to realize that the seizure was triggered by a tumor in his brain that is cancerous.

Those long months were hard and even afterwards the realization is hard to wrap my mind around. After the fact, realizing that my dad could have had a seizure while driving and died is what hit home. The thought of how much worse things could have gone is what led me to this conclusion of appreciation.

The idea of not taking people for granted is so simple and it’s something that has been said a lot over the years. I think every family feels as if they truly do show how much one another means to them. That’s what I thought too, and it took this incident to realize how wrong I was. No one can be “ready” for something as detrimental as this was. As I constantly was waiting for news about my dad, millions of things I hadn’t told him yet went through my mind. It was scary to think that that’s all they would ever be, thoughts in my mind.

I have learned to stress the idea of not letting anything go unsaid. The idea to appreciate the time you have with others. I believe in not taking time for granted. Time on this earth is limited and a special thing. You never know when someone’s’ time will run out and how much longer you have to say everything you need to. No longer will I allow my fears to leave anything unsaid, because even if it is hard to say I know it would be harder to live with it never being said at all. 

"Baby Steps" by Wesley Meeks

This whole experience is scary new.

Your life is changing and you’re not sure what to expect.

She’s small swaddled in pink and staring at you

And you know raising her will be your hardest test.

Now she can walk and talk and sing

She’s getting bigger and growing all the time.

You’re her hero, her best friend, her everything

But someday it won’t just be all nursery rhymes

Years go by and you’re always there

You teach her right from wrong.

Her burdens aren’t just hers to bear

And you nurture her and make her strong.

You comfort her in times of hardship

And rejoice in her success.

You instill in her patience, independence, and leadership

And assure her she is perfect even if she feels like a mess.

She’s now a young lady.

Under your guidance she came into her own.

She’s no longer just a baby

Just look at how much she has grown.

Her senior year has finally arrived.

Acceptance letters trickle in one by one.

High school is almost over now; she survived

And you are so proud of all she’s done.

But now it’s the day you’ve been dreading

 It has finally appeared.

All along this is where her life’s been heading.

She’s ready to leave home just like you’ve feared.

Leaving her is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do

And you try not to let that show.

You are scared to say goodbye – she is too.

But it’s time to let her go.

"Crabs a la Ovington" by Hiram McDaniels

My mother’s side of the family, the Ovington clan, hails from Maryland, so my blood is blue—blue crabs, that is. Every Memorial Day, we cluster in the baking sun around long tables covered in newspaper until some fashionably late Ovington arrives laden with the centerpiece of the occasion: a fragrant bushel of crabs. Then we dig in.

An assortment of tools are available, and the ones you choose tell a lot about you. Some are fans of the hand-held crab cracker, a specialized tool tailor-made for our purposes (and therefore far too easy). Others prefer a hammer and fork, a blunt approach that ends with shards of shell contaminating the meat.

My strategy is a bit different, two-fold and methodical: Surgical gloves, white and sweaty against my palms under the hot sun; precision implements like sewing scissors and a long silver tine. An unorthodox approach, sure, and somewhat ridiculed. It might be less comfortable in the short run, but I would rather earn the friendly laughter of family than pricks from sharp shell pieces or the three-day sting of Old Bay under the fingernails. In this game, it’s everyone for themselves; there are only so many claws in the barrel.

“If you don’t clean it, you don’t get to eat it.” When I was younger, this mantra was more often than not followed by a sly wink and the passing of meat into hands too young to wield a crabhammer, but I always took it to heart, a bit too serious until I figured out the joke. Today, however, with no cousins in the family under twelve, the law is enforced with an iron mallet. Not that anyone minds when I slide a chunk of claw-meat to the less fortunate, like the patient dog-turned-vacuum at our feet.

I learned from a young age the correct procedure for disassembling and consuming our friend Callinectes sapidus, an intricate motion of prying shells, scraping gills, and cracking the carapace to extract slivers of meat no bigger than your pinky finger. Such a struggle might seem pointless, but to me, it’s more about the experience and community than it is about the final product. If I just wanted crab, I’d buy it canned. The family and labor make it worth it.

Writing Center Bros

HWC Tutor Danny V. (Junior) worked with his brother Patrick V. (Freshman) today in the HWC after school. 

"Thanksgiving: Bricktown" by Kate Gillen

For my grandpa.

My grandfather held court
around the smoky kitchen table
after dinner, telling us stories of the time
he released snakes into the ladies’ restroom
in the deli where he worked when he was fifteen
(he got fired that day),
or the time he accidentally
fumigated the entire apartment building
in Curries Woods one afternoon,