"Senior Year in Comparison" by Lola Lane

Senior year is such a strange time. It’s prefaced by every other student who has experienced it as “the best year of your life”, or, more accurately stated, the best year of high school. Although I have yet to experience the totality of the famous senior year, I think I have already picked out a strong contending metaphor for it. Senior year is like Disney World. I think everyone who has been to Disney World cannot deny that Disney World is awesome. There’s this magic to it that’s pretty much unparalleled by any other place in the world. It’s the place where dreams come true- well at least that’s what they tell me. So, just like senior year, Disney world is hyped up like no other. You’re so excited to go to Disney World because it’s so great, and all, but once you get there your energy goes from a 500 hundred on the excited scale to about a 50. There are lines everywhere. Turns out that everyone loves Disney world, too, and they all decided to come on the same hot day you’re here. But you aren’t going to let that stop you because Disney World is awesome, and you don’t want to be that guy who hates Disney World. So here you are, it’s you’re Senior year, and you have tons of stuff to do- keeping up the grades, writing the prize-winning essays, studying for the final SAT, finding time to play a sport, and lastly  scrounging up time to hang out with your friends. Senior year is waiting in the line at Disney World to go on the great ride that everyone who has ever been there knows about and went on at least ten times. It’s hot, it gets frustrating, you wind up yelling at your parents, and asking how much more time until you’ll be at the front, or when you’ll finally be accepted into college. The line does funny things to you. The crowds create unpleasantness. It’s inevitable. You get in line and your face automatically becomes a shade of disdain and extreme discomfort.  The same is true of senior year. Everyone is bogged down with early applications, stressful, higher-level AP courses, and the endless amounts of wondering about the future and how it’s going to turn out for you. The line drags on, as this weird part of senior year seems never-ending. Finally, it’s January 1^st and applications are due. A huge weight is lifted from your shoulders. You are about ten people away from being on the ride. Then it hits, an acceptance or a denial, but you’ve made it to the end nonetheless. Whether the ride was good or bad, at least it’s over. Graduation, and the next ride eagerly calls your name. Of course, this is only how I assume senior year plays out. I haven’t completed the year yet, but I’m fairly certain it would one thousand times better if senior year took place at Disney World. 

"Open Roads" by Naomi Jean Lewis

The road stretches before us with no end in sight.

Trucks rumble behind me, and other families with other stories drive on far ahead.

The speed limits are higher than I’m used to seeing

But I don’t drive the speed limit at home anyway.

I fall in love with golden fields and open skies as my sister falls asleep.

Her cowboy hat hangs behind her and her snowboard slides on the backseat.

She’s still asleep when I drive past the first few wind turbines.

            Hey, Kristen, I say, shoving at her shoulder

            Look at this.

            That’s cool, she says back, and closes her eyes again.

I keep driving, and the turbines keep coming.

The engine growls louder as I coax Ellie

(My sister’s name for the black Honda Element, not mine)

Up a hill and over a crest

            Kristen.

Displayed before me is a sea unlike any I’ve seen.

Giant white monsters rear their heads.

Thousands and thousands of wind turbines dot the golden fields.

They’re not packed tightly but everywhere I look they stand tall.

            Kristen. I don’t know why I need her to see this,

But there’s something about powerful entities

Resting like remnants of another world in the middle of America.

            Kristen, please.

Kristen is awake now, watching the army of turbines stand at attention.

She doesn’t say anything, but I know she feels the same way I do.

We pay tribute to the newly created gods of the earth in silence.

We soar down the road at a speed that makes me feel invincible.

We pray for something we can’t put a name to.

 I drive with one hand wrapped around the wheel and the other on the gearshift.

The turbines don’t stop coming- there are more on the other side of the road.

The sun setting behind them blinds me as the light sets the world aflame.

(They look like angry deities, standing in the midst of Armageddon)

As the sun dips behind the plains, the turbines become barely visible.

(People have forgotten the old myths they used to fear)

The monolithic, man-made creations vanish as fast as they appeared.

My sister goes back to sleep.

We have four more hours before we can stop.

(Although the turbines still exist, miles away, they are gone from our minds.

They were never an army. There was only a cemetery the an empty field.)

(We forget that we have always created our own gods.)

The HWC is on the Map!

The HWC was recently added to a map of Secondary Schools Writing Centers by the International Writing Center Association! You can view the map of all of the Secondary Schools Writing Centers here.

When looking at the map, you'll notice a dense cluster of Writing Centers in Northern Virginia. We're proud to be part of such a strong network of  High School Writing Centers!

HWC November 2013 Statistics Report

We had our busiest month EVER!

"Pushed" by Bear Force One

This piece was inspired by a photograph on the website "Humans of New York". You can find the original image, published on October 7, here: www.humansofnewyork.com  The caption reads: "I just got out of prison. I was there 37 years." "What'd you do?" "Something I shouldn't have done." "What was that?" "Someone pushed me. So I killed him." 

His unapologetic expression burns into my retina. The wrinkles on his leathery skin seem to be the product of extraordinary stress or bad habits dying hard rather than natural aging. A murderer is gazing right at me with his cold, piercing eyes, yet in them I can still see decency, a sense of humanity. I am feeling pity and sympathy for someone that took away another person’s life simply for “pushing him”. What if the person he killed had a family? What if that person had someone in his life that only he could support? What about his aspirations? Goals? Beliefs? Just what in the hell did he mean by “pushing”? Was the old, weary man in the picture really capable of snuffing the light out of someone for something as trivial as being moved a couple inches towards a certain direction in a semi-forceful manner? I mean, he didn’t say “shoved”, “thrown”, or “pummeled”, so when he said someone pushed him he meant it literally. Goodness, take a second and think how ridiculous that notion is for a second. Just think about how many times you run into someone by accident or walk by someone and nudge them a bit too forcefully in a crowded hallway or room. Well that’s how many times you deserve to die using that man’s logic, and I’m not even considering how meaningless that death would be in the first place. A person’s death can be so powerful and represent so much in such a brief moment. It could indicate the ushering of a new era, a new king. It could lead to hundreds of lives being saved and being able to go on and make families of their own/reunite with their current ones. It could represent the socioeconomic, personal, and mental struggles of a person struggling to find themselves in a world that can seem impossible to make heads or tails of. Instead, what a death like that would mean is that someone needs some anger management.

"Battle of the Brains" by Justin Turner

Prompt: What does your sleeping dreaming mid think in the moments before you wake up? What are its last hopes, fears, or promises to itself as the alarm goes up and it feels itself vanishing?

            Ugh. 5:56. Four more minutes before I have to deal with him.  I don’t have time for his utterly happy thoughts or his complete laziness. There is work to be done, thinking to do!

            5:59. Here we go. 6:00. “Beep! Beep! Beep!”  I can feel Justin begin to move. Come on shut it off. Just a few steps to your alarm.  I try my best to keep him in a groggy state of mind as he slowly inches toward the alarm clock.  Just a few more steps!  I can feel my power over him slowly slip away as my pesky neighbor begins his day.  No. I’m not done yet.  Justin slams the alarm clock and as per usual I coax him back to bed. “Come on just more minutes,” I think to him.  After studying for chemistry the night before, he can’t resist and is soon back on his bed dreaming.  Phew.  He hadn’t finished solving his problem yet. Now he has a few extra minutes before he really has to go.  However I now have my own problem to deal with. 

            “Good morning!” I roll Justin’s eyes in his sleep as my arch nemesis comes for his turn. “How are you today?”

“I was fine until you came along,” I said expressionless.

He lets out a staged laugh, “Looks like you’ve taken some extra time again. You do realize it’s my turn.  There are things for Justin to do and learn you know.”

“No. You say that every morning, yet you still manage to make him procrastinate and watch TV instead of doing something truly productive; as a result of that you cut into my time at night when he’s trying to vigorously catch up because you just had to enjoy every little thing but what he needs to do. I’m the only one actually doing anything productive around here.  Just listen to what he’s dreaming about. He’s problem solving, without your distractions I might add.”

He smiles, and says, “He’s not learning anything! I supply those problems you so desperately want him to fix.  Listen to yourself; you need me!  I’ll give you until 6:15 today, but I expect an awake boy tomorrow at 6.”

“Fine,” I say full well knowing that tomorrow was Saturday and not even he wanted to work that early in the morning.  He disappears for a little while at least and I peacefully sit back and watch the beauty of sleep at work.

Writing Center Bros

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