Paul Moses
English 101
The Love of My Life
As fall came the trees changed colors from green to bright orange and red, and all the kids at Newman elementary school returned to school. With all the old faces that I was happy to see after a long smoldering hot summer, there were a few new faces. The new kids got stared and pointed at like abstract art in a museum. For me, there was one new face that stood out. It was like meeting your favorite sports athlete; I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. When Ms. Jones put everyone in class in groups of four she was in my group. Her name was as beautiful as she was-Amanda. Amanda, Amanda, Amanda over and over in my head. I did not know a lot about her but I have never felt this way ever before. The sharp ringing bell pierces through my head, takes me out of my daydream.
It was time for recess, and on every elementary school playground through the country this is where the genders collide like a wrecking ball and an eighty-year-old building. This is when I realized my feelings for this girl had to vanish in the crisp September air. All my buddies scream my name to hurry up so everyone can get one of the good swings, but I couldn’t leave her side. We walked and talked about our lives until I caved into the peer pressure of my friends wanting me to play with them. Even when I played tag with my friends I couldn’t get her beautiful long blonde hair off my mind. The game of tag turns into a free-for-all wrestling match as we jump on each other I can feel the wood chips dig into my bare legs leaving red indents.
Throughout the school year Amanda and I grow a lot closer because we can both see that we like each other. My friends were completely against the idea of a disgusting cootie ridden girl play tag with us so at recess I would just sit with Amanda, she also didn’t make that many of her own friends. Winter comes and the weather gets very bad. The snow as white as paper fell foot by foot, I looked out the window during class and realized every flake that falls is one more preventing us from going outside for recess. There’s nothing I hated more then indoor recess. For some reason I would always get in trouble some how. But this year was different because she was in my life. When I was around Amanda I didn’t feel like running around and being loud.
I would look around and observe the great detail around our classroom. The watercolor paintings look like they were made by the blind hung up far above anyone’s reach, the multicolored rug I pick at everyday during story time. I would talk to Amanda all recess, it didn’t matter how fun the computer game my friends were playing I loved listening to everything she said and she listened to everything I said. Unfortunately I didn’t realize how much my friends who I’ve known for years wanted to play with me. I didn’t know how much that meant to them. They never confronted me about it because they knew I was having a good time with Amanda. Around the end of the year Amanda and I were getting bored of each other and I was lucky enough that my friends still wanted to play with me after leaving them for months for this girl. I will make sure that will never happen again. You have a lot of priorities in life and if you can’t put them in order and figure out which ones are more important then the others then you are not living your life like it should be lived.
2 comments:
wow this was a really good essay. it was one of those stories that you didnt want to stop reading because it was so good. nice job
Sentence One – First, this is a very good start. Try to find a more vivid way to show us the colors changed & I would watch your verb tenses. My advice is to use a simple past tense – change ‘return’ to ‘returned’.
Sentence Two – It isn’t a problem at this point, but you need to make sure that you don’t start every sentence with a restrictive clause before you get to the active part of the sentence.
Sentence Three – Watch the verb tense. You use ‘getting’, which is a progressive verb tense & what is probably needed here is, again, simple past tense. Try to avoid the –ing verbs unless they are definitely needed. Work on making this sentence pop out a bit more, show us the new kids and how people stared at them.
The rest of paragraph one – I like how you use sentence lengths and play with sentence structure in order to build momentum and change the pace of your narrative. This is a very strong technique. Now, combine this with more concrete or surprising detail and description. Instead of just saying she was beautiful – show us Amanda. Also, you switch in the middle of this paragraph from past tense to present – keep it in the past.
Sentence: “Her name was as beautiful as she was, Amanda.” I would use a long dash instead of a comma here. Review when to use dashes.
Sentence: “Amanda, Amanda, Amanda over and over in my head.” I understand the sentiment here, but it’s not clear. What are you trying to say – that you repeated the name over and over in your head?
Next Paragraph, first sentence: Work on connecting the information in the previous paragraph, and specifically in the previous sentence to the very next sentence and paragraph. I’m a bit lost here, and I’m not sure the semi-colon works here. I would get rid of the semi-colon and use the coordination method of joining two sentences of somewhat equal value – place a comma and a conjunction here. I love the second half of the sentence.
General Advice: What I provided were some specific revision or editing recommendations, but as a whole this is a very good start. What you need to consider is how to integrate the information that fills your last paragraph more into the entire essay. That doesn’t mean you state it outright, but we need to really see and feel this intersection between love and friendship, and this conflict in you that is universally experienced by children and adults all over the world – this conflict on how to give time and your heart and investment and trust to multiple worlds, places, or people. Also, this is a great skeleton of a narrative, all the parts are here but make it more memorable. Bring it to life more with vivid, unexpected and unique details – show us more and tell us less. Good luck and keep up the hard work!
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