example essay

I hate it. I'm rewriting it now.

The children grew immediately quiet upon the woman's entrance. They sat up strait while they nervously prepared to receive what she had to say. The woman had a consistent broad smile set neatly upon her face. The smile didn't change with any event; it just remained there like it was painted on the portrait of her face. Her business suite was perfectly smoothed and pressed. The sight of her was a far cry from that of the children. Each of the four was dressed in rags. They're shoulders were slouched as their legs swung lazily under the desk. Each had a dark expression. Their faces shown sadness or perhaps just fatigue. The woman drew in her breath and began with a single statement: "You're all worthless, broken, degenerates of society." There was no question what the faces of each child shown after those words. Each head hung low with the unmistakable expression of shame. However, the woman brought a small iota of hope with her next words: "But here, we will fix you." What exactly does it mean to be fixed? The children were about to find out.

From then on the day of each child was executed in the same way. In the morning, blood was drawn. After a brief recovery time, each child lined up to receive his or her respective ration of pills. When one of them reached the front of the line, they were scanned. It was not unlike the way a farmer scanned his cattle to identify them. After the scan, each child was identified and matched with veritable doses of anti-depressants. After being drugged, the children moved on to school. It was an uneventful process of working through meaningless packets. None of them received any form of teaching or console from a teacher, just more packets and assignments. From there to occupational therapy. I'm not sure anyone knows what the point of this process is. There was one card exercise to train the children not to take unnecessary risks. Another exercise was on choosing friends carefully. How you could really express the importance of either through a simple deck of cards, is beyond me. From occupational they went to recreational therapy. This was every child's favorite time of the day. The time was spent painting small statues and crafting small items out of leather. Even though the activities helped keep their minds off things, the children couldn't help but be reminded why they weren’t allowed to use sharp objects. After recreational therapy, the fun stopped completely.

The children then went to a vastly depressing session of group therapy. Not sharing wasn't an option. In some ways the children became forced best friends, as they were forced to tell the others all of the intiment details of their lives. Out of the seven days each resided in the hospital, there was not one session of group therapy that did not result in tears. The children were also forced to partake in solo therapy sessions. The topic throughout seemed to remain the same: what they were doing wrong.

A children’s behavioral center seems like a good idea on paper. A place to send children when they just refuse to do what they’re supposed to.

Stressing myself in my freetime

I think it's pretty safe for me to complain about my lack of free time without very many people disagreeing. I am a full time student and I work full time as well. I consider myself extremely lucky when I get seven hours of sleep. I don't think there is anyone who would skim the surface of this situation without thinking of the stress or tension it may bring. And it's true, there is both stress and tension involved. But the fact is I really am doing what I want to do. I'm a work-a-hoick, I hate downtime and love accomplishments.

However, recently I was faced with three days off from work in a row. I celebrated naturally in the beginning but by the end I was even more stressed out. I asked myself: "How did this happen?" I came up with the undeniable fact that all my recreational activities were stressful. During my free time I felt it was necessary to do something very unengaged. So I sat in my room and played a video game for who knows how many hours. I blew off a few friends, chores, and homework on the excuse that I was relaxing and couldn't be bothered.

In reflection, losing and being unaccomplished in a virtual world was a bit disheartening. I know it seems silly, but seriously, who wants to be unaccomplished in the activity their using to not worry about accomplishments? That's one thing I really don't understand about video games. Also, I don't think sitting in a dark room in my Pj's while I let my laundry pile up does anything for my mood. Finally, to top it all off, friends get angry at me when I ignore them for three days.

So, near the final end of my long weekend I took a different direction. I curled up on my couch with my statistics book, plugged in my laptop, and did some homework. If I got mentally exhausted I'd surf the web or see what cheesy movie was on sci fi. At the end of this four or five hour period I really did feel very very good, and strangely relaxed.

Thoughts on my thoughts(that are in my essay)

What was my greatest challenge writing this essay?

This paper was to be a descriptive piece on one of a few select topics. They had all the basics in there, a person, a place, or some memory. I had a lot of issues with most of those topics. I really think they pick these same cookie cutter topics so that they get very cookie cutter essays. This is fine as far as ease of grading goes I'm sure, but it isn't fine for my creative thought process. After I finally settled on fog, I had to think of a way to make fog seem interesting. I could have taken the obvious approach and simply describe what fog looks like, but that's boring. Another draw back of fog was that it really doesn't appeal to any of the other four senses. So to slay this 'boredom' monstrosity I described feelings associated with fog. There is always the imagination angle, and that angle doesn't have limits. I don't work well with limits.

How did your comments make you feel?

Indifferent. I don't mean to dis on anyone that commented me, but I really wasn't going to let me take my essay in a direction other than what I'd already decided on. The comments were a great way to remind me to never treat this as a finished product, however. And finally, I really don't think anyone can be more critical of my work as I am.

My reaction?

None. But I tried very hard not to have one at all. Of the posts I read and my own essay, I tried to remain critical and unassuming. That's a very hard balance to maintain. I don't want to read an essay/comment and just immediately think "that sucks" I want to assume they aren't done and move on to giving them something they can use.

To scream to the world that I am silent

I think Aiken's (my English teacher, the one who prompted me and my class to start blogs like this one) idea of writing a letter to the Internet to better writing is an engaging one. However, what do you tell the world on a daily bases? To some people the answer is obvious. You can tell people about your life, favorite things, or your thoughts. Write about what you know, so they say. I think in blogging it might lean more toward "write about what you know...that people want to hear about". In that way it is more like a natural form of journalism. You won't see the news reporting a story about someone going to work on Wednesday, people just don't care about the common. So we can take the question further: "What do I know that can be journalised?". There are only two answers to this question: everything, and nothing. I could blog about my day-to-day experiences and hope that somewhere in the barrel of those experiences you will take interest in something, or I could blog about only the things I expect will find engaging. The second has a major problem. It limits my audience to only the people that find the same things engaging as I.

My final answer came to me very definitively. Limit away! That's right audience, go on and shrink. Shrink and I'll just write more engaging posts until I weed out all you readers that don't enjoy being engaged. In the end, I don't have anything to write for you anyway (unless I plagiarize, and that's against the rules).

(English specific note: I'm aware jounalised isn't a word. In my opinion 'ised' should be added to any word to make it one of the coolest verbs ever. So if anyone reading this makes the rules on the English language, please take this into consideration.)

A foggy day

Moving from Iowa to Georgia had some obvious weather changes. Of course the most obvious was the standard for a warm day moving from thirty degrees to at least eighty degrees, but there was also the addition of fog. Fog doesn’t happen very often in the cold of winter, and therefore it doesn’t happen very often in the cold north. Now, living in Georgia I experience fog almost every day driving home from work. Fog is the most interesting natural phenomenon to me because of the very diverse feelings it can bring me to experience. The fog can bring feelings of calm, wonder, and even fear.

I always found it amazing how the lack of a sense can calm a person. For example, when you sink down in the tub just enough so that the water finally washes over your ears. When you're ears submerge completely you experience a rare and wonderful phenomenon we call quiet. The lack of sound is instantly comforting, despite the fact you are now much less attuned to the world. The first place I go to wind down after trouble is a dark room with very loud music. Fog is no different; the world is much less frightening when you can only see a fraction of it. I always find myself taking a deep breath as I stand in my driveway and look into the fog. Even though I cannot see anything past my mailbox, I find it strangely relaxing. I can hear the cars whizzing by on the street just beyond my field of view, but I cannot see what dangers they may carry or the looks passengers may have for me.

Eventually in my blindness I start to piece together the newly unknown world in my mind. I start to picture in my mind what could be just beyond that blinding haze. I can start to see the creatures bustling about doing strange things they would only dare do on a foggy day. My mind starts to wonder to the possibility of dancing squirrels, cows with lightning speed, aliens abducting cows at lightning speeds. The grass sparkles as it grows greener right before my blind eye. The sky is crystal clear overlooking a large area of faded gray. Raindrops are falling in midair from the fog to the ground. Does the light in the fridge stay on when the door is closed? Why would the world stay the same if it is cloaked in shadow?

Few things could make a person experience calm and fear at the same time as fog does. On a foggy day there is a small area around me that I can see clearly. It’s what separates me from my mind’s world of wonder. Standing still, the boundaries are clearly marked. I can see plainly the end of my sight’s circle. The mildew lying lazily on the grass and the stiff concrete below my feet is all well known to me. While moving through the fog it becomes much more dangerous, if that solid concrete were to fade just beyond that boundary of haze I could fall into an even deeper state of unknown. When other objects move from the haze towards me I can rarely stop from fearing what’s going to happen next. Watching the object slowly fade from an invisible sound to a clear image is breath taking. The seconds that pass as the image moves from smoke to solid seems like an eternity. Cars can make this transformation at higher speeds, making it in some ways much more frightening. You never know when or what edge of the circle something will come out of next. What’s even worse is I do not know what will soon fade into my small circle of reality.

Fog is little more than a natural phenomenon to some people. To me it’s more of a playground for my mind. We get very intent on knowing our world the very best we can, but what happens when that knowledge is stripped from us? In some ways it can be calming. If you can’t see your world then you don’t know the dangers that lie within it. In other ways, it can be wonderful. What’s great about anything you don’t know about is that there is always a discovery to be made. There is the subject of fearing the unknown, however. I think this must be the most dominate emotion in most people’s mind. Not just with fog, but in all aspects of life.

A hospital emergency room

Mrs. S. Aiken

English 1101 – descriptive paragraph

August 25, 2009

A hospital emergency room

My eyes are still heavy but that doesn’t stop the overwhelming smell from intruding upon my pain induced calm. The smell was a sharp, unnatural smell of a mixture between light fragrance and climate control. The absence of any other smell is immediately apparent, almost as if it suddenly dominated my whole world. The feel of the sheets under my body slowly creeps over each nerve. Everything on my body feels rough and coarse, like it could never belong or be comforting. The gown moves in stiff lengths with the slightest movement of your body, as if I could never make it flow with the rest of me. The absence of other feeling is again apparent, coarseness the only texture flooding my body. The sounds of the room come together slower, as they are more diverse. Simple yet informative beeps quickly form a pattern in my mind until I no longer notice them. The clamoring of collaborative doctors that seem to distant for you to hear, or worry about. Still, I can’t help but wonder if they’re talking about me. My eyes finally flutter open as the picture slowly fades into focus. It hurts a little, there is far too much white. Again a sense overwhelmed with a singular patter: white and empty. This time, however, quite a few shiny-smooth stainless stell instruments dominate my sense completely.

What I want from english 1101

I took the morning English 1101 class before I started working nights. So by the time classes rolled around I was ending my day with English while most people were starting theirs. I think this sets the backdrop for my starting this blog with an apology: I am way too hyped up on caffiene at the moment to think strait. Unfortuneatly, it’s the only way I can stay awake. I’ll try and promise you that I will stay on toppic.

English has always been one of my weakest subjects that I’ve held the most interest in. I’m a completely abstract person. I’m good at math and I can’t draw a stick figure. What most people don’t think about, is that this makes it very hard to transform my thoughts into words. I’ve always held the act of expressing exactly what I’m thinking or feeling in the highest regard. Because many of the people around me speak or read English, this means that English is an important tool for something I really care about. It has two major examples of where I think it becomes shockingly important, the professional and the personal side of life.

In my professional life it becomes very important to describe my thoughts and ideas in an effective way. An idea can never become great unless people know about it. It has been said that everone has a million dollar idea at least five times a month. If that were true, then why don’t we have more millionares? The simple answer is that people fail to comunicate these ideas. Another side of that is that you’ll never get help building your ideas into reality if you can’t express them properly to team mates.

On the flip side of life, the personal side, English becomes important for different reasons. If a friend is down in out, it’s very important to know how to express you care. There are simple words for this that we say every day, but all of those drive me crazy. Why would they drive me nuts? They aren’t personal. I need people to know that I care, not that I feel it’s politically correct for me to care in their situation. Of course, on the darker side I’d need to let people know exactly how I find their behavior distasteful and how I’d like it to change. Hopefully, making both our lives better.

So to answer the original topic, I’d really like English to make my life better. That’s the only criteria I really have for it. If I have to wait until I’m 64 for it to come in handy, I’m cool with that.