Reflection

As I look back at my years at Asa Clark Middle School, I have learned a few things about my writing skills. The fist thing is that I HATE writing essays. Secondly, due to my minor case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I can't stop proof-reading everything I read, pointing out the smallest little errors that I see. Even on Facebook. Third, when I do write an essay, I write good introductions (sometimes my conclusions are pretty good too) while in the body of the essay, I often start summarizing without realizing it.

Raymond's Run: View of Cynthia Procter

Look at Squeaky over there. Practicing her breathing. practicing for that race no doubt. She's always practicing. I don’t need to practice. Everything just comes so easy. I don't see why people always have to study for the test. I don't need to. All everyone needs to do is be more like me. I'm perfect.

Note: This is based on the character Cynthia Procter from the story Raymond's Run by Toni Cade Bambara.

The Lengths People Go To For Perfection

How would you imagine a utopian society? No wars, no fights. Most fights and wars are caused by differences between people. If everyone was the same, wouldn’t that get rid of all the differences between people? Well, yes but then how would you determine what the baseline is? In a world where everyone is the same, everyone would only be as smart as the dumbest person, strong as the weakest person. Imagine the world then; a world full of idiotic weaklings. How much of a perfect world would that be? What I just described to you is the world from the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. where everyone must be handicapped in order to be equal.

In the story, people have gone to great lengths to make it so that everyone is equal to one another; radios that make a loud and distracting sound every few seconds for those who “could take unfair advantage of their brains”, weights to keep people from being too fast. Does this sound like a perfect world to you? Sounds more like a prison to me. What with people being weighed down like the old metal balls that they used to chain to peoples legs so the prisoners couldn’t escape. Another connection I made to prison was when Harrison was shot because he tried to get rid of all the handicaps, it made me think of disciplining a prisoner after a prison riot.

To achieve equality, would you want to handicap everyone just so that they would all be the same? Think of what would happen to the world if everyone was the same. No games would be won because everyone had the same skill, no records would be set because everyone can only achieve as much as everyone else. Life would be boring.

Weekends

When I was given the prompt to write about my weekend, at first I was drawn a blank. My weekends are filled with sleeping until noon, lounging around in my room with a book or my laptop, eating when I am hungry. That is my typical weekend. My ideal weekend. I would not like for this to change, I do not like change. I was afraid that I would have nothing to write about. Then I realized that I could just tell you what my weekends are like. I didn't have to tell you about any amazing feats that I accomplished over the weekend because I have none, that is, unless you count watching seasons 1-5 of "American Dad!" on Netflix in 3 days (I consider it to be).

Speak

As you walk along the halls, no friends stop you to chat. No one says any friendly hellos, nobody's asking how the test went, you're not discussing how much you hate math or social studies or whatever. The only human contact that you do have are the dirty glances in the hallways from those who were your friends. You lay on your bed and no one calls to talk to you about how the homework is so unfair or how so and so is SO cute. You are alone. This is what is happening to Melinda in the book "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson after one phone call.

During the course of the book "Speak", Melinda is constantly being ignored by her former friends and you really don’t know why at the start of the story. However, as the book progresses, you start to learn more about the event that caused this outcome in flashbacks and little hints throughout the book. Melinda also has flashbacks of the incident herself that are triggered by things that remind her of that night. In biology for example, when they were dissecting frogs as she pinned down the frog's legs, she remembered being pinned down and helpless on the night of the party. Not only is Melinda being ignored by her old friends, but her parents as well. Her family used to be one big caring family when she was little, but as she grew up, things started to change and her perfect little family was no more and he parents almost never talk to her anymore.

The book "Speak" is a perfect example of how your entire world can change in an instant based on the actions you take. You should be careful with what actions you choose to take part in because it may have worked out for Melinda in the end, but that doesn't mean it will turn out that way for you and your actions.