Crafting the Essay Week One

CTY BRISTOL, RI

JULY 3, 2016

Crafting the Essay

We met as a group of strangers, each with our doubts and our hopes. Five days later we had shared our writing, our thoughts and our best work.

Along the way we learned admiration for authors that we discovered that we loved. We added tools to our writer’s toolbox and listened to them clank a reassuring metallic song as we carried them along our essay journey.

We wrote, we shared, we remembered. Here is our best work even as we know the best is yet to come.

C

H

G

CELEBRATION

HUMILITY

GRATITUDE

We celebrate each other everyday for each of our unique gifts.

We acknowledge our limitations as a place of growth.

We express the role that others play in our journey.

1

CTY BRISTOL, RI

JULY 3, 2016

MIKEY 3 ANGELA 4 YASSINE 6 NEYDA 7 GABY 9 MARIOLA 10 AMEIKA 11 LEILANIE 13 IACOB 14 PATRICK 15 LYNN 18 LUCY 19 CHARLES 21 MICHAEL 24 JON 25

TABLE of CONTENTS

2

MIKEY

this room, but not a ordinary black. A pure black, a black gives you chills throughout your body if you even glance at it, a black that makes you tremble in your boots and makes you uneasy of the idea of the unknown.

Like so many stories, this one begins with an ordinary boy named Francis, who never had a home. He was switched from foster home to foster home, as quick as you turn the pages of your favorite book. Francis never fit in anywhere because he was “weird”. I know you might ask where his parents are. Well, Francis never knew his father and his mother whose heart had stopped when Francis was born.

Francis fell to blame for his mother's death; he would call himself worthless, useless, no good, and lousy. All these words ran through Francis’s head as he beats it as a drum.

Francis reached inside, shutting his eyes with a sense of fear. His hands went straight through the once flat, two dimensional mirror. After that, he climbed in with a certain face and curious mind. He felt a surge run through his body he couldn't explain.

“Hello?” Francis screamed into the darkness.

“Hello.” the darkness answered. “Who are you..? Where are we?” Francis asked with a startled face. “Who are you..? Where are we?” the darkness said as it faded away. “Go figure, it was an echo.” Francis said. “Go figure, it was an echo.” the darkness replied. Francis looked around. He saw pure black. Francis started to walk around with his arms lifted to his chest.

“W-What is this?” he said with his surprised face in awe. Francis felt around and in surprise, Francis found a doorknob. He turned the knob slowly to the left while closing his eyes to brace himself. When the door was fully opened, the pure black backdrop was gone. Francis opened his eyes and saw one of his worst memories, being in his 7th foster home. “I can’t be, I can’t be here, I can’t, I, I can’t” Francis stuttered. He turned back, to go in the darkness to avoid this horrible experience. “WHERE’S THE DOOR?” Francis said in a panic. He ran to the corner, curled up in a ball. “Why do I feel empty?”

Francis said with a frightened face. He looked at a wall half full with picture frames, with a thick layer of dust. Then he looked at the coffee table, made purely of maple wood with a book to help balance it. White a all blue coaster on the table to hold a small glass of whiskey.

In the shower he would cry, hoping no one would hear due to the water drops roaring like a waterfall. He would call himself weird as well.

He would scream at himself in the mirror before he gets in the shower over a plain white sink with decorated bronze metal handles and faucet. He would tell himself, “Stop being different, stop being worthless, stop being odd, stop being YOU, be someone cool, be someone who fits in with the it crowd, be someone else….” He took a moment and looked at himself in the foggy mirror and said to himself, “Anyone else.”At that very moment, the mirror’s fog overtook the entire mirror instantly. With a questioned expression on his face, he tried to wipe the mirror to see himself, but it didn't work. Francis tried again and again, each time pressing harder and harder. Francis took a look at the mirror, a very close look. He bent over the sink and took a closer look. He saw a small flare. “What?” Francis questioned himself.

Francis rubbed his eyes and told himself, “Be realistic, Francis.” Then at that moment, the flat two dimensional surface of the mirror deepened into a three dimensional space. “You're crazy.” he whispered to himself. It was only black in 3

“BAM!” the splintered red, wooden door with rusted hinges opened in a rage. It was not an ordinary man who came out the door, but … the god Hades, and no, he wasn't a little red man with horns or a blue man with flaming blue hair. He looked like you and me, an ordinary human. His face was sharp and chiseled as if Michelangelo had carved it himself. His jawline was strong and sharp, so sharp that with a mere touch it would give you a paper cut. His cheekbones were marked and big; his eyebrows were on fleek. His eyes were ecstatic as if there was a fire in his eyes that wouldn’t go out.

you were born.” “How did you do that?” Francis interrupted in a worry. “Through the mirror, silly. A mirror represents your true self, but only the gods can see it with the visible eye, for example. I can tell who you are. You’re a fighter, a killer. I could never be prouder.” Hades shouted. Francis didn’t want to to be a fighter or a killer, but he was happy he was accepted.

All Francis’s life, he wanted to be accepted, and he would do anything to be so. In elementary school, instead of going to the jungle gym to play with the other kids, he would stay and talk to the teachers, and sometimes not even the teacher would stay on the blue bench to talk to him. In middle school trying to talk to some girls, he tripped on the barely glossy peach color floors, and he stayed down while everyone pointed and laughed. Or even in high school, in gym class he would be picked last for every team or be used for target practice in dodgeball. Even when his friends showered, they would steal his clothes so he would have to endure the mortification of walking in the long and narrow hall with a towel around his waist. Francis would do anything to be accepted, even if it meant being a murderous killer. “Ah, finally, my evil lair of evilness.”

Hades announced as a breath of air passed him by.

“Why am I here?” Francis asked as a frightened expression appeared on his face “Well my dear boy, or you can say my son, I need you to help me with something.” Hades revealed as a quick smirk popped on his face “What?” Francis’s face was confused, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped on the ground. Hades snapped his finger, making a dark medieval spruce door materialize behind him in a blink of an eye.

“Follow me.” Hades said in loud, strong, voice that bounced off the walls so loudly as if he broke the sound barrier. Francis quickly followed him, scared to ask why or for their destination. Francis saw a long narrow hallway that looked like an aquarium. An aquarium of souls. “Am I in Hell?” he whispered to himself.

“Am I in Hell?” He said, not thinking of the consequences. At that very moment Hades saw the fire, and was proud and surprised. “Yes son, we are. This is our kingdom which will one day be the entire world, universe, and galaxy.”

Hades grinned a smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial. What do you mean?”

Francis repeated until Hades replied. “Well you know, enslaving every human on planet Earth and world domination.” Hades said in a quirky way. “I can’t.” Francis sputtered. “Francis, my son, I have kept an eye on you since the day

To be continued…….

ANGELA All These Little Things “Feels like I am falling down a rabbit hole, falling for forever, wonderfully wandering alone.” My older sister is always scolding me for getting distracted and straying away like a lost child. But not all those who wander are lost. As 4

I walk further and further away from my house, I walk further and further away from reality, further and further away from the chains that bind me, and closer to my own thoughts and feelings of adventure.

most people. A man in his 60s once hopped out of his pickup truck and told me, “Be careful, people don’t always look when they’re driving down here, they’re always looking at their darn phones.” He told me this as his floundering fingers frustratedly fumbled with his new iPhone to show me a picture of a bear he’d seen on the road earlier that week.

Miller Lane, that’s the name of the street I walk down the most. It’s a narrow street with a name just about as average as you can get.

Nothing special comes to mind. But the more you walk down this road, the more little things you begin to discover. To me, Miller Lane was the first time I stepped away from my suburban neighborhood, crossed the busy street, and began to explore. Miller Lane was independence, adventure, and freedom.

In the beginning, one side is filled with houses while the other contains the forest. How odd it is to see two worlds colliding at a single piece of pavement. The thump, thump of the pavement feels good on my feet and I wonder where it will take me. The forested area then opens up to a small barn, home to a lonely, somewhat dirty looking horse.

For years, I’ve tried to pinpoint the reason why Miller Lane felt so different from other roads in Montville. Maybe it was the clusters of trees standing proudly on each side of the road, not merely as ornaments, but with reason. They stand so tall that if you tilt your head back, you have to squint with watery eyes to see the farthest leaf that has turned black like dozens of others from contrasting the bright sky. The results of the leaves mixed with sky are patchy areas of shade against the asphalt, giving the whole road a dreamy feel.

I remember how I was amazed to find that we had a horse in an area as suburban as this. I was mesmerized for a whole half hour, staring with wide youthful eyes. The horse’s lips peeled back to strip the grass from the dusty ground. The horse was in total concentration, as if it were a desk job. No matter how much I waved or whistled, the horse would not budge.

But one day, there was an exception. On that day, I approached the gate and miraculously, the horse lifted his head nobly and began to trot over to meet me.

Shall we go for a stroll down Miller Lane?

The horse was definitely larger up close.

The flies surrounding the horse buzzed around, their sound seeming to invade my brain. Reality had struck and I began to wonder if the gate was high enough to hold back a murderous beast of war. What am I doing here, I asked myself. But determined to confront the horse I had watched for so long, I reached out a hand, touching the gentle creature’s head. We stayed like that for a few seconds until it began to walk away. This was the only time I’ve touched the horse.

Be careful crossing River Road! It’s a two lane street with cars whizzing by. Although sometimes cars will stop if they’re nice enough, letting you do a quick shuffle across. Just a few more strides and we will have made our way to the safety of Miller Lane. Congratulations, you made it! Even still, my dad always tells me to be careful on Miller Lane because even though the street is narrow with no shoulder, cars still whizz past. It is, after all, still a regular road to 5

Walking past the horse, there is a small bridge, hiding a childish stream underneath.

The stream playfully twists and turns, as if unsure of where to go next and instead escaping into the forest.This place often marked the halfway point of my journey, where I’d lean against the chipping white railing to gaze into the cool water, letting my mind dive in.

Kanouse felt a little colder in that moment, even though it was perfectly sunny outside.

Standing atop the small hill of Miller Lane, one might’ve thought I felt victory. But don’t forget that there is still the return trip to walk. At this point, I don’t even feel my legs move anymore, only my mind. Walking past everything, you’ll notice that the power lines and golden grass are still brooding, the stream still flowing, and the horse still eating according to routine.

At this point, your feet may start to feel cramped in your own shoes, but your movements are also beginning to fall into a pattern. Out of nowhere, the trees disappear.

Immediately. Tall golden grass rises in their place, golden grass that runs for miles, protected by gigantic power lines. Once I had spotted a building in the distance and tried to walk to it. But the field was too large, the building too far away, and I happily realized that I was too small.

You can bid adieu to the horse, but he won’t look up. This time at least.

My sister scolds me that I get distracted, that my head is in the clouds. I bid adieu to Miller Lane, my personal cloud kingdom, but as I ride back into reality, I take all these little things with me.

Uphill we go! The last stretch of Miller Lane is surprisingly steep. I almost feel like running to the top, but I would definitely get some strange looks. There were a lot of houses on this part of the road. The houses on Miller Lane were not large and luxurious like the majority of suburban houses in Montville. I never understood large houses, it seems to give excuse to stay indoors, where it’s comfy and stagnant. These houses were more humble, as if they knew of great, timeless stories.

YASSINE Beautiful Bermuda. Pink sand and beautiful blue oceans, which allure tourists from all over the world. Railway trails which carve their way through foliage and trees, shards of light finding their way through branches and trees too hit the ground. Colorful, bright houses, different in shape, size, and color, united only by their white roofs, which collect water and reflect sunlight. But the average tourist doesn’t know that. This beauty has become the normality of the average Bermudian.

One time I took a walk down Kanouse Lane, where there were million dollar homes shining upon freshly clipped emerald lawns. It was pretty. I spotted a man standing outside on his driveway. As I began to walk past, I gathered up the courage to smile and wave. He stared at me.

Surrounded by this beauty and in possession of knowledge are two friends and

6

Bermudians, cruisin down the street in their blue car.

“All right stop what you’re doing cause I’m about to ruin”

The blue car was a small second hand Clio, nicknamed Petra by the owners (cliopetra, and petra is the name of an amazing soca artist). It had a door that wouldn't open, a window that wouldn't move up or down, and a faulty headlight. And the owners loved it. Inside the car, classic hip-hop or soca is playing, and when it comes to these two, there weren't many times when it wasn't. This time it was hip hop.

The father starts to rap aloud, and after a while he sees the child blindly jamming. He asks him if he knows it. The child shakes his head no, but says, “it’s boasty.” He then goes on to explain to this amazing son, that it has won a grammy, that the humpty dance was one of the best of the 1990s.

They sing aloud with the chorus and laugh and have fun and cruise down the street in their blue car.

The owners were more than just best friends, they were father and son. Bantering playfully about the Father’s age. The child was exaggerating from the actual age of mid-thirties to late fifties, the father saying that the grey hairs on his chin were just beautiful blondes, making the child laugh and look through the window at the beautiful ocean that they were driving by.

NEYDA I fell in love with Bristol, Rhode Island the moment I arrived to the airport. Once heading to the bus, you could feel the difference in weather from Arizona. The fresh and enjoyable air passing through my hair and hitting my face, with no necessity of hiding from it. As I came to Roger Williams University I observed the difference in vegetation, how in here there is no cacti or yellow grass, instead tall and green plants. I observed the difference from one floor house with a few plants here and there to a three floor with an extensive and glorious garden that were built on my left view.

The father had s brown/blonde afro, with a few greys as well (no matter how much he denies it). He has sun-darkened skin, glasses, a white shirt and camo cargo shorts. When he smiled, his small light brown eyes lit up. The child was a darker slightly chubby boy with brown eyes and curly hair. He was wearing mismatched clothes and pink and black basketball shoes that were too big for him. When he smiled the smile was too big for his face, and he had dimples “Just because you weren't blessed with beautiful blond--” the father starts, before the radio cuts him off with

I observed Rhode Island.

One of the places that I never thought being able to visit in my life.

“Oh oh, do me baby”

Rhode Island is the place to relax and run from personal issues. Rhode Island is the place to know new people and make friends.

The father smiles and looks at the child.

The child smiles back and the father starts rapping aloud to the radio.

7

Rhode Island is a beautiful place…. A beautiful place full of green, small and big leaves hanging from trees that rub the unreachable sky.

by us humans with our inventions. Fortunately it was all the way around, I am able to enjoy the tranquility and different landscapes of Earth in Rhode Island. This place is perfect to relax and get in touch with the beauties of Mother Nature. It’s a place full of different cultures, which is perfect to know chunks of information from another place in the world.

As I headed to the university, happiness started to fill my whole body. The thinking of doing entertaining activities, receiving helpful lessons for my writing, eating nutritious food, and socializing with outstanding people made my gratitude increase for everything. I love how in this place you can have a relaxing night and not woken up in the middle of it by a plane that is fertilizing the crops a few miles away. Every morning I wake up the smell of sea welcomes me to this place, and the odor of wet plants and dirt makes my nerves calm down.

When visiting Rhode Island make sure it’s around 4th of July, so you can see how one of the oldest states in the U.S celebrates it.

When I was on my way to RWU I could see how houses were decorated with the colors red, blue, and white and flags representing how proud they were of their country. I could only imagine the elders and youngsters joy of seeing fireworks paint the dark sky with the colors of our nation and celebrating one additional year of independence with their family and friends.

As in every story, there is a painful part and for me it was to leave my family behind. I had to say a “see you soon” as I left their side to go catch my plane. When I saw their faces full of sadness because of my departure, I knew I’ll miss them more than ever.

Rhode Island is the perfect place, but never like home.

But that didn’t stop me.

I will always prefer traveling in car than an airplane. I will never get tired of seeing the beautiful and tall cacti full of harmless but painful spikes growing everywhere in Arizona. I will always enjoy the high temperatures, but with a low percentage of humidity, compared to here. I’ll be in love with the simpleness but modern houses that take acres occupied in Arizona.

Of course, I wanted to let my tears out and go give them a hug, to never let go. But I had in mind that I worked hard for this event to happen and I couldn’t let my sadness with this battle. I had in mind that there would always be a way to communicate with my family, because there is no barrier stronger that our love for it not to happen. I had in mind that this trip was meant for me because I’ve won it with my effort.

I will always be in love with my state and lovely home Arizona.

Before visiting Rhode Island, I thought of it as a place full of tall buildings and traffic everywhere. No chance of seeing nature, its infinite blue sky or it's full of mysteries forests, because of the buildings and cars taking over it. Only seeing the gray pollution created 8

GABY

I’d been staying in a hotel not so far from the famous “Angel of Independence.” Right on the corner. I traveled the city of Mexico like a mouse hunting for the bright yellow cheese.

Desperate to uncover the untold tales. I visited a museum full of potential arts, “Palacio de Bellas Artes.” A place where art didn’t just tell tales, but where the artists expressed their feelings for love, frustration, and satisfaction. A place where artists could reveal what they felt inside their dark or colorful minds. A place where their illustrations left you speechless, and you found the true meaning of art. I waited in line for the breath-taking “Frida Kahlo Museum.” Anxious to observe the astonishing intense arts. Eager to reveal the true history behind the walls and minds of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

I may have said “goodbye” to the Mexican buffets and the fresh cut shredded green lettuce with a strong savory mouth watering queso fresco, but it is impossible to really leave behind the ancient golden brown buildings. The ancient meaningful statues. The dusty half broken pyramids.

White marshmallows shaped in a baseball form, bubbled above my head, thinking “how did it all crash down?” Imagining thousand and thousand of unknown innocent people, newborns, and not yet to be born children. Thinking “was this the unknown civil war?”, “Were these people dressed as warriors that gave them enough power to kill thousands of innocent hearts?” Shooting a 2-inch sharpened metal bullet inside their pale skin, and destroying everything they had, a family, friends, cared ones. This is and forever will be a true heartbreaking story in the city of Mexico.

The way these two people would create their paintings. The way their arts weren’t just a piece of paper smudged on a paper. The way their artwork meant something powerful.

The weather showed cloudy gray skies and winds cold as and ice cream popsicle. Jackets on top jackets and scarves on top of t-shirts, almost looking like a snowman. Glancing at how people would secure their purses like it was some sort of magic treasure. So different, so unique, so beautiful.

I wandered through the gray rocky cement sidewalks of the “Memorial and Museum of the Revolution” where our bravest soldiers were buried. I sprinted to the train, in this case, Metro, where there was no eye contact found nor conversations with others. Hiking all the way to the top of the pyramid. Feeling the clouds inside my rosy pale skin. Feeling I could almost touch the bright burning sun. Feeling the gravity increasing.

Untold fantasies that came to life. Full of mysteries and emotions. Mysteries that opened my eyes wide open. Knowing that out there, beyond the ancient statues and pyramids, there’s a whole new world. An unknown world for those who live there. A world full of boxes to open. A world full of different emotions.

I paused for a moment, and thought “I’m actually here.”

My world stopped.

I fell in love.

Ignoring all the honking of the mobiles and yellow mustard taxis driving around in circles.

Ignoring the people with dark Levis jeans, a t9

shirt that had a statement of “Viva Mexico”, and a wooden fabric fan on one hand to cool themselves from the hot heat. Hearing people shout at the top of their lungs “TAXIII!”, and understanding perfectly to their Spanish speaking. It came back to me the first day I stepped on the rusty floor at the airport. In the moment, chills commenced to crawl down my vertebrae and I realized, I knew where i was standing. I could feel my eyes moving around, glancing at every detail. From the type of white van you get kidnapped from to the bright lights almost seeming like a Disney Light Parade.

blues that start in the shore I stand on, and extend all the way to the horizon, where they start to climb upwards toward the clouds. As my peripheral vision rotates inward, I can't avoid paying attention to the sublime greens that the plain, brown palm tree trunks wear like dazzling crowns. Around the shore people linger adorned by bathing suits of every color.

My eyes, in a quite greedy manner, feed off of the stunning colors that surround me. I intently observe the little girl in her fuchsia bathing suit so completely focused on her sandcastle, she doesn't notice the giant wave that destroys it.

Now I know Mexico City will forever be that 1 week where I understood why I was alive. Why I belong in this world. Why every book, piece of art, building, has its reason to be here. And as I was heading for the white with a golden number of 2133 door, it came to my mind that Mexico isn’t just a city, but a world full of tales.

Tales I might never get the opportunity to hear from them. Tales not even those who live in the beautiful place of Mexico know. Tales that no one might ever know.

On one morning, I set out with my family for a hike. Mind you, that when I say family it's referring to twenty people. Driven by my competitive nature I hiked ahead with my male cousin. Stopping occasionally to admire, what he made out to be, visual paradise. My greedy eyes had once again something to feed off of.

As we took in the magnificence of watching the Atlantic Ocean stretch out before our eyes. A view of such splendor that my cousin asked, “Can I marry this view?” We continued on our path climbing toward the pearl cotton candy clouds over our heads. Leaving behind not only the view, but also our fathers who trudged along slowly, since they had to bear the weight of our little sisters on their arms.

With every step came more enchantment, as we climbed farther and higher; I felt a sense of importance, and gratitude for simply being there. As we continued our hike we reached a fork in the path; neither of us knew which direction to take. We decided it would be best to wait for everyone. To rest my exhausted legs, I sat down on the small rock wall that ran along the trail. Little did I know, that what seemed to me as a comfortable seat, actually held a cluster of small cacti, concealed by the leaves. I was sitting on three cacti, which now remained

MARIOLA I fell in love with the beaches of the British Virgin Islands. As I step onto the hot white sand my feet begin to burn, I quickly start to sprint toward the water. Once there, I feel relief as the crystal clear water meets my feet. As I look around, my eyes are blinded by the large spectrum of colors on display in front of me.

The redness of the woman that basked in the sun for too long. All the shades of beautiful 10

stuck to my body. The parents were long behind, and all I could do was wait. As I registered the pain, I began to question, how a place of such infinite beauty, could in fact bring me so much pain. After twenty minutes of waiting, my dad arrived to bring me aid. Upon arrival, he burst out laughing. Finally, he helped remove what we counted to be about eighty spikes that had pierced my sensitive skin.

was an oversight. Among the rubble of her architectural mess I find clarity. Focusing on the beauty she was creating , surrounded by vivid colors of every variety, was the best mistake she could have made. Through waves of pain our sole focus should be beauty.

AMEIKA However, I kept climbing to see the world below me from greater heights. I kept climbing to taste the wind; I kept climbing to feel nature's beauty flow like a steady stream into my soul. I kept climbing to leave my footprint engraved in the heart of the mountain.

Souled Out Like so many stories, this one begins with me giving you false hope that this will be a happy story that ends well. Maybe about a cute, bubbly talking bunny or a teddy bear that finds it’s place in this world. Sadly, this is not that type of story. So if you want to hear a happy ending I would suggest something else.

Aristotle said, “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

I strayed from the man-made path to observe nature in its initial state; nature that has not been rearranged by the hands of the man. I sit down on a rock, and look down at the dirt below me, and start to see the beauty we are all too preoccupied to notice. A trail of small black ants walks along dragging the body of a bee taking no notice in the giant that hangs over them. I admire these minuscule creatures that work together to carry an insect 7 times their size. A tiny bird flies above me; it perches in a nearby tree, and starts to “sing simply because it has a song”, as Maya-Angelou said. Even the rocks astound me with their ability to stay grounded. I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by my good fortune.

Well for starters this story is about the root of all evil that tears families apart; money.

It takes place in the small town of Lost Soulville. In this town the rich get richer while the poor get more poor. The town’s population is about 50,000 souls. For outsiders this town is corrupt. For insiders it’s just the way of life. For everyone it’s not a place to raise a family. A family with bright eyes and hope will enter, but leave with lost dreams and an exhausted soul.

The majority of the population is in poverty and the minority is the rich and richest of the rich.

There was a street in this town. Some described it as eerie. It was cruddy and reeked of grease and dust. On that street was a leaky, small cottage. In that cottage lived the Plouff family.

Their family consisted of Oswald; the first born, Toca; the middle child, and Aldava; the youngest. Oswald was the primary caretaker of his two younger sisters since their parents died.

They would never forget the tragic death of

As I return to the beach, I walk by the crumbles of the little girl’s sandcastle. I can now see that her sand castle, it was made of beauty more than of sand. At first impression I thought that her distraction was an act of foolishness; that not paying attention to the destructive wave 11

their parents. The story was that their parents were on their home when suddenly a deer appeared on the road. The father tried to avoid plowing down the animal, but as he swerved he lost control of the vehicle. The result of the tragic accident was the death of their parents.

Some say that is not the real story because the bodies were never found. Some say the couple are in hiding. Some say they took their own lives. The worst theory is that their children killed them.

inheritance is to be given to my children Oswald, Toca, and Aldava. Children please use this money wisely. Remember money is the root of all evil and money does not supply happiness. Do great things and change this town my beautiful children. I love you,” was the message.

Oswald , being the primary caretaker, was able to access all the inheritance accounts. He made an agreement with his sisters to not use their accounts so when they came of age they would have everything they were promised.

Oswald never cried after hearing the sorrowful news. Toca, who was about two years younger than Oswald, believed one day he would go insane if he does not let his grief out. Oswald continually disagreed, even though it was highly likely.

There was an elderly homeless man that lived in that town. He was known for being very friendly in Lost Soulville. Even though many poor people were struggling to pay bills and provide for their family, they still gave food and spare change to the man.

One dreary day a man visited the Plouff cottage. He entered and took a seat on the moth ball scented pull-out couch. He informed the family that he was a friend of their father.

As the man spoke the children could not stop staring at the man’s chestnut colored toupee, which did not blend well with his jet black hair, even though they were paying attention. The man explained that their parents were both rich before marrying. Once they married they agreed to discard the luxurious life and live off of minimum wage.

Aldava’s favorite pass time was concocting meals for the elderly man. She enjoyed their casual conversations and always reassured him that there will be brighter days.

A week passed after the children’s encounter with the toupee man. Oswald finally mustered up the courage to sign over the money to him and his siblings. He signed the document that he was given. He went to work before he could bring it down to the bank.

Oswald did not believe the man. Oswald believed his father would never lie to him.

Oswald knew that his father detested being kept in the dark about things going on. So he know his father would not do it to him.

Or so he thought.

Aldava took the document and rode her bike around town. With every pedal she picked up speed. With every turn she glided smoothly.

With every hill she coasted down she threw her hands up with delight. She felt free. As if she was a bird leaving its cage.

The children were not only given the inheritance, but along with it came a message from their father before he died. “This

She came to a halt in front of Ramsbottom’s Coal Factory. Everyone in town hated that place, even the workers. The factory was dreary 12

and dead. The smell of gasoline and coal was prominent. If the smell didn't kill you the corrupt factory owner would. The townspeople believed that the strange disappearance of people was the work of the factory owner. The townspeople never saw the factory owner. That was the downside to having a killer living amongst them. They never knew who to trust.

San Luis AZ can be called more as a united community, with heart kinded people. A community where parents raise their children with manners and respect. Teaching them life morals, for example, to treat people the way you want to be treated. We are not all the same.

Some of us speak English, some of us don’t.

Students who don’t are usually the ones from San Luis Rio Colorado, who cross the border each single day, waiting in line for around three hours early in the morning, ready and motivated ready and motivated to learn and succeed in school as well as in life.

A year had passed since the day Aldava foolishly gave the inheritance away to the elderly man who was secretly the factory owner.

Oswald and Toca never held a grudge toward Aldava for her mistake. Neither of them cared about being rich, but Aldava could never forgive herself. Especially because the town labeled her as a traitor and murdered her for helping the rich man.

Our community is also filled with hardworking fieldworkers, who without them we wouldn’t have our daily vegetables and fruits. Something that differs our city from others is our strong savory delicious mouth watering tasting food. San Luis AZ just has that unique spice that all Mexicans adore.

Aldava’s poor soul was souled out.

We have a type of parties “pachangas” were everyone will cook different pots of food and dance to the beat of the music, until they drop. Everyone has the chance of showing off their astonishing dance moves as we form a circle and move our hips all night.

LEILANIE San Luis is most well known as an ugly hot deserted city, my home. Outsiders who visit, usually come to see family, no one comes with the purpose of exploring new adventures. People may observe San Luis as a city full of dried cactuses, but down deep our city, my city, is a world where dark green trees show laughter.

The border separates San Luis city and San Luis Rio Colorado, which both seem technically the same, but the truth is they differ in many ways. But something similar they all have is how their filled with generous people who no matter if they don’t have enough food amongst their family, they will always offer you a been burrito at least, despising their poverty.

Living and growing up at San Luis AZ, started as a dream for my parents, which later on this dream became true. The purpose for my parents moving from San Luis AZ was for my older brother to have a better education. It took a couple of long but worthy years, but soon my mom became a teacher with a master’s degree at childhood education. She started from the bottom of working in the fields and acknowledging zero English. These are the kind of examples that keep me going everyday in life and make me believe in myself and know that it is okay to dream.

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When I look around my place, my home, my city, it was not my ideal place of a dream, but it was where I have lived all my life and have accomplished things I thought I never thought I would’ve. San Luis may be small. San Luis may be a hot deserted place. San Luis may be somewhere where no one would ever want to live in, but it will always be my home, that shaped me into the person I am now.

Anyways, the landscape can vary on where you are. There would be the rocky mountains on the way to San Diego from San Luis. On the same route, there would be the flat, wavy sand of the landscape. On the way to Tucson, the land would be flat, then mountainous, then it would be hilly, it would all turn out to be flat.The way to Yuma, which I am more familiar to the most, would be grassy, then sandy. Fields would be there as well, then it would be sandy.

It’d be hilly or flat depending on where you go, but nonetheless sandy.

IACOB

Let’s talk houses and buildings. The walls of the houses in my hometown of San Luis in Arizona are usually smooth, and if they have gate walls, they are usually built with bricks.

The lawn have either sand, dead grass, or green grass with flowers. San Luis Río Colorado in Sonora has buildings that are either bricked, or smooth, and are either filled with graffiti or not.

They both have their fair share of good and bad. They are good places to live in either way.

This is why I recognize both Sonora and Arizona as my home(s).

I fell in love with Arizona and Sonora the moment I grew old enough to start remembering. San Luis and San Luis Río Colorado are the two places I recognize as home. Both are different in appearance and culture. Mexico would be the home of the family in my mom’s side, and the U.S. would be the home of the family on my dad’s side. Both places are part of the Sonoran Desert. The Sonoran desert may not have so much grass and trees and such, but it has its own kind of beauty. Everyone sees the Sonoran Desert as this place of barren emptiness. I see it as a place of many things, home to organisms. Those organisms can be dangerous, like a snake’s venom. These organisms can be cute, like a furry jack rabbit. Those organisms can have weird defenses, like a cactus that jumps onto your hand if you get too close. All organisms thrive in their own way, like humans with air conditioning.

It’s still hot there though. As of 10:00am, 7-1-16, it’s 87 degrees in the two San Luis’, and it’s 7:00am for them at the time. Everyone expects to see the Sonoran Desert as this place of barren emptiness. I see it as a place that is filled with many obviously different things, and home to many organisms.

San Luis, Arizona is a small city. It has clinics, mini markets that sometimes sell cheap knockoffs of brands. We’ve also got supermarkets. We’ve got a food city, a Walmart, and a Del Sol. The city is also usually calm and quiet, apart from the occasional car accidents.

It’s still hot there though. The afternoon average temperature in the summer can be 102-112 degrees, and the winter can vary from 30-60 degrees.

San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora is a city.

Compared to my San Luis, this San Luis is huge.

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It’s got many mini and supermarkets. It’s also got a few hospitals of their own. The Red Cross has also established a building there (they’re cool). There are so many people living there as well, and it isn’t quiet. Usually the yellow light on a traffic light means “¡YA VÁMONOS, YA VIENE LA LUZ ROJA!”, in English, it would be “COME ON, THE RED LIGHT IS COMING!”.

The police doesn’t really enforce the yellow light rule like that police here in the U.S. Anyways, there’s also danger lurking in the big San Luis. My parents got robbed twice, where one time they left for twenty minutes with the door locked. The other time was when a robber broke into the house while they were awake in their beds.

Does it sound grandiose? Maybe a bit exotic?

Maybe even a wonderful place to live in? Well, that depends on who you are.

If one happens to look down from the windows of a Boeing 777, like a six-year old me did eight years ago, fresh out of the suburban areas of Richmond, Virginia, you’d probably have marvelled at the speed of China’s modernization: massive skyscrapers casted their even more massive shadows onto the extremely wide, well-paved roads of the capital, and the steady flow of cars which laid upon it; gigantic, concrete bridges zigzagged the earth, over rivers, roads, and low-perched buildings; and on the outskirts, the Great Wall of China stood amongst tall hills and green trees, past insignificant rural villages that were as unseeable as a lone ant climbing through the Mongolian grasslands. And as the plane slowly drops, you can see the cars being enlarged, pedestrians appearing on the sidewalks, individual poster signs screaming “50% off”, jutting out from the smooth surfaces of apartments and malls--

In the smaller San Luis, in Arizona, it isn’t very chaotic there. Everything there is calm. The bigger San Luis, in Sonora, it is pretty much chaotic. What makes me call Sonora a home too is the fact that my grandparents and uncle and aunt live there. Their homes are very secure.

My grandparents home is small, but back in the day it was considered a very big, and rich house. My aunt’s family live in the house where my family used to live in. And I just realized I gave a little insight on my life.

And then, you land.

Sure, feel free to continue marveling at the great, grand skyscrapers and the ludicrously well-paved roads; but no matter how blind you are, even if you’re a stupid little six-year old, you’re still going to see some uncomfortable details. I remember some questions I liked to ask my mother in my first few years in China: “Why is nobody waving hi to us?” “Why are there so many people?” “Shouldn’t pedestrians stop at the red light?” and, if you happen to be in one of the slightly older residential areas: “Why is there so much dog poop on the sidewalk?”

As much as I love it there, it’s still hot there though.

PATRICK You Don’t Need To Love Your Home China, an ancient, magnificent, gigantic country with the largest population in the world.

Beijing, China’s ancient, magnificent, gigantic capital with the Great Wall of China to the north and Tiananmen Square in the center.

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Still, all those things were small problems compared to my first year in Beijing.

They say you have to be close to someone to see their true colors. It’s the same for cities, I guess.

The marvelous “face of of China” quickly dissipates into another “International New York”, only with dirtier air, dirtier food, no Google, no foreign TV channels and a much stricter educational system. To the visiting journalist, it is an ultimate disappointment.

escape being the few hours I had at home. My one way ticket out of misery was video games; our old computer often overheated during the weekends because of all the software programs going on. But seven years can’t go on like that, right? Else I’d be psychologically scarred forever (who knows, maybe I am). I may be generally anti-social, but I know that you have to have friends to keep sane. And so my first year in China was the painful process of adapting, learning to stop calling myself “Patrick” and start calling myself “Chen-lan-rui”, to start speaking Chinese and Chinese only, to expect traffic jams and delays, to wiggle and squirm my way through a crowd, to say yes to a teacher no matter what the requirement was.

Adapting isn’t easy, but I guess I got off easy: in the second half of fourth grade, my father had a new work place, and we got a new home; and I, I got a chance to be someone else in a different school. In the new school, I fared much better: I seldom brought up the fact I was born in America, and if I did I never hinted that it was anything special; I spoke Chinese, and although it was accented heavily, the students there actually really didn’t care; I, like nearly every student, followed our teachers without a second thought. (Though this new batch was way nicer). And armed with my superior English and Math grades, and later even my Chinese grade, I became a “model student” in China’s academic-orientated education system.

Although if all you feel towards Beijing is disappointment, you’ve obviously not been there long enough to lose your biased expectations. Beijing was the first metropolis I remember being in, and it was a pretty big blow to my dreams of living in a “beautiful city”: the skyscrapers I had dreamed that were mine were in fact, for kids, off limits and merely on display. My life actually consisted of a sixteenstory apartment with three times less space than my old house in Richmond. I remember looking at the old sofas the family before had left behind (it was a rented house) and wondering: “What are these brown smudges?”

We didn’t have our own backyard; cities are too crowded for that thing. Instead we had a “public yard” that was usually filled with people and kids who had their own little “gang”, of which I had no part in, due to me knowing as much Chinese as somebody from Ireland did.

My classmates would stare at me as I mumbled and fumbled and tried to express myself in a mix of English, accented Chinese and hand language. They didn’t laugh, but that was mostly because of our teacher’s iron fist, which I, the six-year old who came from the “land of the free”, soon learned to fear. And that was about it, my first year in Beijing, friendless, speechless, facing problems I never knew existed such as traffic jams and overcrowding, almost daily, for all the good those bridges and well-paved roads did, with my only time for

And it wasn’t only school life that I got used to. I lowered my expectations of Beijing. I now knew the tall skyscrapers were merely statues for me, and were nowhere in my life.

Instead I biked through old alleys with brick heaps scattering the sides, sings fading into obscurity, with stray cats and dogs rummaging around the rubble. There was one black cat that sat on the pile of bricks everyday, yellow eyes glaring at my red-blue bike, and any other 16

random passerby. The squalor didn’t bother me, the history didn’t interest me; the alley was just there, just the old part of the town I had to cross, to the new school I had to go to. Even traffic jams didn’t bother me anymore; they were just something you had to get through. In the last few years in Beijing, the air pollution wave struck. I thought it was the end of the world in the beginning: A hazardous cloud descended upon us, blocking the sun and replacing the clouds. After three days of listening to how this was an “extremely dangerous health problem” and “oooohhhhh & ahhhhhhhh”-ing to the smog that enveloped our city, our family bought gas masks and an air filter, and life went on as usual: the thick, dense smog became no more foreign than the city of Beijing itself.

those things--healthcare, decent education and a bright future--are, sadly, nearly impossible to achieve in the rural areas of China. Maybe it was because Beijing being the land of “opportunity,” a lot of “small workers” actually looked happier than those wearing German brand high heels. They sounded hopeful, where I talked to one of them (such as our elevator operator); it was as if Beijing, for them, was the ultimate one-way ticket for their children to lead a better life. For me, and for other people who’ve lived in cities or other developed places, Beijing was just another city.

This one probably noisier and messier than most. Have you ever been to a museum in Beijing on a holiday? Even three years in I continued to mumble that we went to the National Museum to see the back of people’s heads, not sculptures. But for the rural workers, they didn’t care. Would you care if you had to breathe dust everyday, if this city could save your child from a disease that’s incurable where you are from?

City dwellers are often the same everywhere. New York, where a stabbed man and a dead body can go by without causing a commotion, is very much like Beijing, where old men who fall down don’t get help, thanks to some old man’s fraud game, where he falls down and sues the person who helps him up.

However, the “small workers”, who mostly come from the rural areas, always seem to be nicer than the ordinary city dweller; janitors, elevator operators, construction builders, etc.

When I talk to a small worker, they always seem to have a great amount of hope in their voice; I know for a fact a lot of rural citizens come to Beijing as small workers, hoping to get some savings in the “land of opportunity” in China. A construction worker’s salaries spared over, if he/she’s a conservative guy, may be just enough to afford a high-risk surgery for a son, an expensive cancer treatment for a daughter, or just give his/her next generation a better education and thus a better chance that they themselves one day can come back to Beijing, albeit as college students, not small workers. All

Beijing’s a different city, depending on your pace and time. From a plane, it is majestic; from the inside, it’s a pile of bodies on a pile of dirty bricks. For those who came to Beijing to find an Asian Paradise, they were disappointed; for those who come to Beijing to find a glimmer of hope, they were fulfilled; for those who come because they had to… well, they don’t feel anything at all. But for 6 year old me, going to a foreign city to find the life he was forced into, it was a changing city, beautiful then horrible then… simply there.

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Of course, looking back at it now, I’m so happy we decided yes and couldn’t imagine otherwise.

People who already had children told me wonderful things. That I’d be happier. That I’d learn so much. That I’d feel so many emotions I didn’t think would be possible. All they said came true. Take for example the first word. I never knew that a word as simple as “mama” would make me cry. Just seeing an actual human that I gave birth to speak for the first time gave me the weirdest feeling in the best possible way. It made me amazed at people in general and the love of my first led to my second child. My life as a mother now orbits around them, the most important people in my life.

LYNN Dear Undecided, Although it has been over ten years ago, I can vividly remember the tremendous joy that came with the birth of my kid. Expanding a family is always happy, but looking in the mirror makes it palpable that with having a child, comes tremendous responsibility.

Maybe it’s because I’m a mother myself, but my heart was already leaning to one side as I read your letter. Darling, the fact that you’re writing this letter alone means that yes, you should have a child. You’re not completely saying no, so missing out on something as big as this means you might regret it if you don’t do it. I want you to close your eyes right now.

Imagine a life where you come home from work. You’re coming home from work to a beautiful wife and child. Taking videos of the baby’s first steps. Its third birthday. First day of school. Graduation. So on. Think deeply about another life you get to experience and ask yourself: Is this what you really want?

The most important thing is to discuss everything with your wife as I did with my husband. I can’t promise everything will be perfectly fine, but I can promise that if you do have a child, there will be many sleepless nights. There will be a war to be battled every time you turn on the bath. There will be times you want to give up.

But you won’t.

Childcare is hard, and even the people who are “lucky enough to just know.” struggle with it.

But hearing about your cats and your willingness to sacrifice your time for them, I think you’ll make a wonderful father for a child.

It’s okay to not always want to watch your child. It’s okay to sometimes become so lazy and order pizza once or twice a week. It’s okay to to be a little lazy. Everyone is like that.

One of the things I learned and loved about your letter is that you love the simplest things in life. Honey, if they bring you so much joy, I can’t imagine the eternal joy your child will bring. This is actually a discussion my husband and I had ourselves. Due to a slightly late marriage, we sat down to discuss this, and it was something that and to be taken into serious question. When people asked if I wanted a child, I would hesitate before I said yes, and as if the hesitation wasn’t enough, my yes was not always certain. The reason why we eventually decided to yes was because we thought we’d regret it in the future if we didn’t.

The point in your life where everyone around you is having children is where your path has taken you. If your path takes you down a road where you become a father, then great. But if it

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doesn’t, remember: don’t be afraid to take a different one. Love, Salt

mostly the same group of friends with very few

additions and subtractions throughout my years. As I walked around the halls with my best friends, we could wave hello to our second grade teachers. We didn’t realize it then, but this school was shaping all of our lives. And although I had been at that school for almost ten years, I am still going to miss that place from the worn brick exterior of the Corey building to the fancy new 3D printer that they installed last winter.

LUCY The Backwash of Middlesex County: aka My Home Carlisle, Massachusetts is known for three things: our school, our size, and our tractors. My school is widely known as a “good school,” and our teachers (most of them anyways) are phenomenal. The fantastic school system is one of the main reasons that my parents and many others chose to move there.

It is the only school in our town because of the low population. Carlisle has a little over 4,000 people, but most of them are senior citizens seeking fresh air and a nice retirement home.

My school has around 700 people total, and it is pre-k through eighth grade. My class had eighty, and we were one of the biggest classes in Carlisle history. The roads are speckled with tractors and antique cars that people putter on by in, without a care in the world.

Carlisle has molded and shaped every aspect of me, even my friends. My first best friend, Maggie Be., I met in first grade. She was walking up the stairs to our classroom and my teacher, Ms. Horgan, suggested I introduced myself. Being the shy child I was, I refused. So she did it for me. Maggie Be. and I said hi, and began to play with each other at recess. By the end of the year, we were best friends and always by each other’s sides. If not for Ms. Horgan, I would never have met Maggie Be., and I would’ve still been a loner when second grade rolled around.

Everything about Carlisle exudes farmer. Our rusty tractors gleaming in the mid-July sun, the chickens bleating a foggy good morning at 5:00 am, little girls bringing their pet goats with them as they walk to school, and our annual parade, where people dressed up as carrots and tomatoes and threw honey sticks to the cheering crowd. Most people have probably never heard of Carlisle, and probably never will, but it’s my home, and I embrace every tractor, chicken, and goat that Carlisle has to offer.

Maggie Be. remained to be my only friend until third grade, when we were put in different classes. We were still best friends, but during class I had to socialize with other people. We had to pick partners for a project, and I didn’t know who to pick. Neither did another girl, Maggie Ba., whom I knew Maggie Be. had been close with in second grade. Our teacher, Mr. Stamell, paired us together and had us make a large calendar page of the month September.

While working, we got to talking, and at the end of the morning, we decided hang out at lunch. And recess. And the next day. Soon enough, our duo became a trio, and together

My middle school years have been a unique experience that I will never forget. I’ve had 19

we blazed through third grade and beyond. If Mr. Stamell hadn’t paired us together, we wouldn’t have ever crossed paths.

collapsed in fits of laughter, and I got to see her true colors, because she brought down her defenses. After this she was a lot more open to talking to us. Carlisle taught me that kindness is the best first impression, and that rubbed off in how I met Cleo.

In second grade, I started cheerleading, and I really enjoyed it. I could dance, I could cheer, and I could stunt. The only problem was my gymnastics, specifically that it was not good. In fourth grade, I decided to sign up for intramural gymnastics, and so did a girl named Samantha. Through the weeks in February and March when we rehearsed our routine, we grew close. She pushed me in gymnastics, school, and we immediately bonded through our love of Kesha and Taylor Swift. We performed an easy (yet challenging for us) routine to the song “crazy kids” by Kesha. Later that year, we also joined the jump rope team, and did a routine to “Teardrops on my guitar” by Taylor Swift.

Signing up for intramural gymnastics introduced me to Samantha, and I’m sure glad it did, because now I consider her one of my best friends.

I met Tillie in seventh grade, when we shared a locker for field hockey. We both loved the sport, and were the only seventh graders, so we were with each other a lot. After field hockey season she started sitting with us at lunch, which made me so happy. We were also in the same gym class, so we hung out there too. Tillie fit in really well with the group, and got along with everyone, so it was destiny for us to be lockerbuddies for field hockey. Unfortunately, she is going to a different high school next year, so we didn’t have much time together. Every moment though, had been amazing, and I’m sure going to miss her. If not for field hockey, I wouldn’t have become her friend, and I am so glad I signed up for field hockey that year, because now it is one of my deepest passions.

Fifth grade was an intimidating year. We started to switch classes, which was new to us. A new girl named Cleo was in another homeroom, so I didn’t get to introduce myself until lunch. She was walking around looking for a place to sit in the lunchroom. She was quiet, and didn’t want to sit down with people at their already determined lunch tables. Samantha asked me if I knew the new girl, Cleo, and I said no. I then saw her roaming around trying to find a place. I walked up to her and introduced myself. I asked her if she wanted to sit with us, and she said sure, relief relaxing her tense face muscles. She didn’t really say much, but did chime in at places in our discussion. After a few weeks, I asked my mom if I could have a playdate with Cleo. When she got to my house, we played a weird game, in which we tried to walk around with stuffed animals on our heads. We

Our group was complete with our most recent edition, Marie. Marie is out-going, fun, beautiful, and a little crazy. She moved here in summer before eighth grade, and I introduced myself, and we immediately hit it off. She showed me how to do funny faces, and I showed her how to do good interpretive dances. For some reason, she meshed with the group really well. She was a dancer, I was a singer, my friends were artists, so we all understood each other's values. Every time we are with each other, I laugh until my stomach hurts and I’m crying when we are together. Our teachers get mad because we talk to each other all the time. We have deep conversations, funny conversations where all we do is talk about puns, conversations where I almost pee myself from laughing so hard. Even though I’ve known 20

her for less than a year, I can’t imagine my life without her. My friends are so important to me, and Carlisle helped me find them.

city within a city. Shanghai was this metropolis -- the largest city in the world, something I’m quite proud of, I’m ashamed to admit, for I often scoff at people being proud by association. It was such a city that an area of suburban house complex where I lived in can be right next to a small apartment-city of its own, complete with shops and schools. And this place was an one hour and a half drive to the real city center.

When I think of home, I don’t just think of a little town in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think of my school, or chickens. I think of my friends, and all the memories we’ve had together. You could look at my house, and think it was normal; a gray house with stones on the sides, a small number “81” painted in white of the shiny black mailbox, the chunky asphalt on my driveway, the long grass stained with yellow spots from my dog. Everything seems normal and boring until you look on the inside for the memories. You will see me and my friends having sleepovers, getting ready for first dates, helping each other get through breakups and deaths of family members, throwing parties, studying for midterms and finals, attempting to work out, and just talking to each other. Every part of Carlisle is my home. The dark windy roads, the smell of sheep in the noon heat, the swamp in my backyard where we go iceskating, but most importantly, the people that I’ve known and loved throughout the years.

This is the city I grew up in, the place I had lived for almost my whole life of seventeen years. This is also the city I’ve left behind, the place I’ve abandoned for better opportunities in a boarding school of the United States. This is the city I’ll miss as long as I’m gone.

I didn’t know how fortunate I was when I was there. Like everybody else around me, I complained about the traffic, the smog, and the great firewall of China. I hated the endless hours I had wasted stuck in a car, while it moved painfully slowly along with other cars crawling near it, forming a viscous stream of red lights. I detested the smell of the smoke caused by the smog, suffocating and heavy, and how it sticks to my skin, showering me with a sense of uncleanness. The city was covered with a haze of gray. I loathed the slow internet and how almost every major foreign websites were blocked, and I had to suffer by using VPN to get on them, watching the browser painfully trying to load on my screen. Sometimes it felt like that I was trapped by a prison made out of manmade constructs of the modern civilization, forced to accept limitations self-imposed by humans.

Carlisle is called “The backwash of middlesex county,” and we are quirky farmers who ride tractors, and I know that. It’s not going to stop me from enjoying every little honey stick that I get thrown. Carlisle is my home, and it’s imperfect. But that’s what I love about it.

CHARLES My childhood began in a two-story house with front and back lawns. Just to the east was a radio tower, kind of metallic and ugly. To the west was a huge gathering of apartments, enough people for the population of a city. A

And then there was that memory.

I just started elementary school, when people were still on their flip phones, and Shanghai 21

still lacked two of the tallest buildings in the world, out of a total of four she has now. I was with my aunt, who took care of me a lot when I was young, and we were going to take the subway to a shopping mall. The subway just had enough people to fill its seats, at least for the cabin I was in. It slightly rattled, only ever so slightly, as it traversed the land in a straight line right next to a highway. I sat on the hard, plastic coated pale green seat, absentmindedly looking at the scenery on the opposite side. The seats faced each other, left and right, providing a walkway in the middle. After about ten minutes, the door linking to the other cabin opened up, and two people shuffled in. I took one look and my heart sank and I closed my eyes. It was the most gruesome thing I had ever seen in my innocent few years of life. An adult and a child. The child was older than me. His entire face was burned -- red, injured skin folded together, so much so that his eyes were buried in them. I felt an instant sense of disgust and fright. I closed my eyes, but I can’t unhear his mumbling and moaning and begging for change. Nothing my aunt tried to say could comfort me. I refused to take the subway for a year, and later, for a long time, when I did take it, I kneeled on the hard, plastic seat, facing the window and the scenery on my side.

That was ten years ago. Since then many things have changed. Shanghai is a much safer city now. I’ve matured and I’ve understood the implications and asked questions that will never be answered. Shanghai became a home. I’m still not familiar with every street and corner of the city, of course, for its massive size. There are still too many parts of the city that I haven’t visited yet, as if they’re a neighboring town.

I moved to an apartment complex around the end of elementary school. It wasn’t the one near my two-story house of my childhood. I moved because I had transferred to an international school. I learned most of my English there because the classes were taught in English and the kids there spoke English. The complex was right next to the HuangPu River that divided Shanghai into two big chunks, PuXi and PuDong (West and East), like a huge serpent lying across the land. Looking out of the window, slightly coated by dust, one could see a huge bridge across the wide river while boats of various kind, fisher boats, ferries, cargo ships, etc., winded their way down the place. The water was a little murky, and various algae had floated on it before it got cleaner. The vast, expansive scenery mixed with a little disappointment. Perfect for Shanghai.

The incident marked the start of the time when I began to fear the city. I began to fear strangers. Tales of taxi drivers as kidnappers.

Tales of danger lurking in the night behind the lights of lampposts. Tales of murder, fear, fraud, lies, and violence. Everyone I didn’t know was suspected of potential theft. They couldn’t be trusted. Even though the city frightened me, I was grateful. I definitely had avoided dangers like an average city dweller. To me, Shanghai is like an eagle mother, forcing her eaglets to jump out and learn how to fly.

My mother said that in her childhood, all she wanted to do is to live there. She would go there given any opportunity, taking trains to leave her hometown. “The city amazed me,” she would say. It was not until after when she returned from France that my dad and she started living in Shanghai. She said it felt safe, for she has connections and people spoke Chinese.

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I really didn’t think much about Shanghai until I left. It was merely a place I had to live in. I miss it very much dearly. I miss how the rows of thick trees embraced the road, cooling the temperature down a few degrees, with only a few spots of light cast on the ground amidst the shade. I miss how the rows of small shops competed with each other, so their owners can make a living, trying out their luck in the city, away from their hometown. Such lively people.

I miss how the rows of tall buildings stood firmly beside each other, endless in sight, their mirrored windows reflecting the sky and the sun. And even above all of that, I miss the people -- my friends and my family.

originally an empty space, in the middle of the city, designed for festivals. We were there just out of a sort of curiosity, thanks to our love for electronic music. We had only been to a dance club in an academic competition sponsored event. The music and the energy of the people pulled us in. We didn’t feel connected to the crowd or hearts beating together or anything like that; we simply had a ton of fun. That night, we screamed our hearts out and danced until our bodies were sore flesh, down to every blood vessel and nerve.

We also had times when we simply wandered around a peaceful park. Nobody was around us.

It was quiet. We just talked about things. From school to memories to opinions to home to politics to hobbies and interests. And we talked about how I was about to leave China, how life would be different, how the future was uncertain. I promised that I would keep in touch.

Shanghai is a city, and a city is made up of people. In fact, they collectively decide the essence of a city. And I have met some of the best people there, two of my best friends. One is named Kevin, whom I share with ninety percent of our interests, especially when it comes to producing electronic music. Another is named Jacky, whose personality complements mine so well, and I can’t even explain why. He and I can just talk about almost everything. The three of us hung out together the most in the city, and nothing screamed Shanghai like the innumerable variety of places we could choose to hangout.

Perhaps I have romanticized Shanghai a bit, being away for so long. There is a rose-colored tint to my memory. However, I’ve been to many cities in my life, and none could rival the draw of Shanghai. None of the other cities has an endless sea of tall buildings; from their airports to their city centers, one can always see a group of buildings rising up, like a lone, jutted mountain. Shanghai is different. There are buildings everywhere, going on and on. It feels like a mesh of different cities, carelessly pieced together. There are sections of old european buildings built by the old immigrants. There are huge shopping centers sprinkled throughout the city. There are tiny streets filled with miscellaneous street vendors. There are short buildings coated by grey bricks and tall buildings covered in mirrored windows.

One time we went to an electronic music festival. That’s supposed to be a niche thing in China, compared to all the other mainstream stuff. However, considering the sheer amount of people in Shanghai, a small percentage means a terrific amount of people. It was massive.

Thousands and thousands of people in one place, jostling against each other, screaming to the lyrics and dancing to the songs. We went to the very front row, although very much to one side of the stage -- that was the only way to get there. There was three stages in what was 23

Shanghai will continue to evolve without me.

In the one year that I’ve been gone, one of the tallest buildings in the world has finished construction. My Shanghai will only be alive in my memory, along with a small piece of it—the promise that I’ll never break.

A majestic local inn stood boldly in front of us.

Not quite the five-star hotel that we were imagining, but it really did seem to produce a sense of idealism. The “inn” sign was glowing brightly red, contrasting the darkening sky clouds. A man was standing at the entrance rather neatly. He seemed quite stern when we

MICHAEL I fell in love with Phuket the moment I stepped outside the airport. Exhaustion filled my legs.

And they felt like dropping to the floor. Suitcase in one hand, the other hand occupied with a magazine to fan my face, which was already beginning to overheat from the overwhelming humidity. Beads of sweat were trickling down the side of my head. The chatter between me and my friends were lost in the deafening sound of the industrial city. In my head, I’d expected more of a resort-like environment and therefore the majority of our facial expression consisted a hint of surprise. The heat was slowly sucking out the very minimal energy that we had left, as we finally made it to the limousine taxi.

first got out of the taxi, but with eye contact, his expression softened into a warm smile. His white, but crooked teeth stood out in the Thai man’s face, as he began to walk towards us to pick up the luggage. What was rather more astonishing was the vast ocean that lay in the background. Tranquility was all over and the sea lay peacefully, waves crashing on the shore in harmonious rhythms. The sun had almost disappeared from the horizon and the atmosphere was dim. A faint sound of prayers from a mosque not so far way could be heard in the distance.

We entered the inn and lied down in the beds in attempt of getting some more rest. Closing my eyes, I tried to sleep, yet it seemed like the previous two hours of dozing that I had was enough. I lay in bed, listening to my companions snoring loudly. I decided to take a walk outside; a quiet and soothing walk by the shore.

As we entered the vehicle, a cool relief hit us, with the blaring air conditioning giving us a rather sensational feeling. As I closed my eyes, I imagined the Phuket I was expecting to see like a beach island, until a sense of serenity took over and I dozed off. It was apparently about two hours later when the cab driver slid the doors of the limousine open. I rubbed my eyes open, in attempt of adjusting my eyes to the brightness, confused with what appeared before my eyes. What appeared was something completely unexpected. What appeared was not a dirty city, but a rich green environment.

A cool breeze hit me as I walked by the shore, a pleasant chill running down my back. Grains of sand wrapped around my toes, and it felt as if I was back home by the beaches of Japan. I kept walking along the water until I came across a loud lit district. Chattering between people filled the air. A night market.

What appeared was a paradise.

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As I tread across the muddy pathways of the market, familiarity could be felt amongst the Thai people. Fresh food was dispersed across the entirety of the market. An immense variety of fruits were piled on top of each other on the large tables. A taste of spice from the meat filled my nostrils, a scent which was rather new to me. I watched the kebab shop owner countlessly brushed the kebab with his personal masterpiece sauce. It steamed with taste, as my mouth watered in hunger. The man seemed to notice, stating “Super local: from the farms of the north!’ I came to realize the essentiality of localness. As each and every shop was stacked with local products. People knew what they were buying and where it was specifically from, whenever they attended these markets. I checked my pocket for money; to my surprise coins tinkled inside. I purchased myself one, and rapidly devoured the delicacy. The store owner was grinning the whole time, as I gobbled his meal.

puffy coats and pants. A closer glance reveals little kids doing the “pizza” straight down the mountain, closely followed by nervous dads.

With an even closer glance, you could notice a little girl cheering and jumping up and down.

She had finally finished her first green circle without falling. Her excitement seemed to be contagious, filling the peaceful environment with laughter and happiness. And that is when I came to my senses. I noted my three yearly vacations, and how I have the opportunity to see this type of happiness so often. With an annual vacation to Mont Tremblant, I have the blessing to see all of its joy each and every year.

I realized my life was filled with good fortune, which always brought me to my favorite destination, Mont Tremblant.

As I approached the top of the mountain via lift, I noticed the beauty of the city of Montreal. I saw the solid-blue St. Lawrence River. I saw the trees capped with white fluff. I saw the dark green land past the river, which lacked snow, but still managed to sparkle in its own unique way. These beautiful views caused me to believe that my luck was equivalent to that of a lottery winner.

It really was a paradise.

I couldn’t believe that I was in the same place that I’d left the airport, with a suitcase in one hand, the other hand occupied with a magazine to fan my face.

Once, when I was 7, I got off the lift and reached my trail, which at that time was the usual blue square. As I started to ski down, I realized that this trail was much harder than I had expected. With both fear and exciting pouring down my face, I carelessly messed up and went into the designated mogul area. As I skied through the foot-tall mogul hills with determination, I began to tire. At this time, I had to make a split-second decision. I could make a cut back to the non-mogul area or continue through the moguls. I thought about the exhaustion building up through my body, and my adrenaline told me to cut to the nonmogul trail. At that time, I hit a mogul and

JON I fell in love with Mont Tremblant the moment I stepped onto the powdery, fluffy, white snow. I gazed around the massive mountain noticing the clear, blue sky. On the steeper slopes were athletic, year round skiers with neon colored poles, shaped to be the most aerodynamic. On the flatter slopes were families teaching their kids, who were wearing 25

went flying. My skis were still under my body thankfully, but they were still five feet above the powdery safety. Amazingly, I landed flawlessly; I did not fall, contrary to my expectation.

day even brighter. The wooden, snowy-roofed, shack-like shop sold BeaverTails, always having lines of 10 people or more. In those lines stood a family of five, waiting impatiently for their chance at the sweet, delicious goodness. We were looking at the menu, and I had decided on the Oreo BeaverTail, the fan-favorite. This creamy buttery pastry, topped with drizzled vanilla icing and hot, crushed Oreos. With each bite, I experienced heaven on my taste buds in the form of food. With the once-hot icing turning chilled and the actually pastry staying warm, a perfect combination is unleashed into your mouth. The taste of BeaverTails seemed dreamlike, too good to be true. Yet, in a place like Mont Tremblant, these fresh sensations were just the sprinkles on an already splendid sundae, and the long line would once again be worth it.

But then, it happened.

Following my safe landing, I rammed into another skier. As I glided through the air, I relived all my inner feelings again. In those few seconds, where I flew over the snow, I asked myself how such a magnificent place could cause such immense pain. I asked myself if Mont Tremblant was truly special. I asked myself if my love for Mont Tremblant was real. I asked myself if Mont Tremblant was the place for me. Though even with all the doubts, I come back to Mont Tremblant every year.

No place is a utopia. There will always be some flaws with the “perfect” place. I fractured my tibia in my accident. When I fell, no one stopped to ask me if I was okay. Even the guy who hit me just skied away. It took nearly an hour for a Mont Tremblant staff member to come and retrieve me(as I could not stand up). At that time, he was more concerned with whether or not I would sue than he was with my injuries. When he brought me in the skimobile back to the lobby, I had no one ask me if I was hurt, just why a little kid like me was skiing through moguls, even after I repeatedly stated it was an accident. When my family came to bring me to the hospital, I got no “hope you feel better”s or “hope you’re okay”s. Instead, the “friendly” staff kept telling my parents that they signed a waiver, stating that they were not allowed to press charges.

I am at Mont Tremblant, I often exclaimed silently. Mont Tremblant was like the Zeus of ski resorts. The Barack Obama of ski resorts. The Bill Gates of ski resorts. It was completely astonishing, how all the best things in the world could be incorporated into one location. Its marvelous ski slopes. Its exquisite variety of snacks. Its communal, cozy boardwalk-like path. Its efficient and busy gondolas. Its people wearing endless puffy layers with 20 pound boots. Its fearless hunters who killed any precious animal in sight. Its hurtful staff, who did not give a shit that I nearly broke one of the most important bones in my body.

And yet, I still fell head over heels in love with this place. Something about the way I fell and fractured my leg makes me feel like I owe this place. It got the better of me the first time I came, but I am back. I have something to prove. I have to show that I am superior to this

But it is a tradeoff.

Usually, after a long day of slopes, Mont Tremblant offers exquisite pastries to make your 26

ski mountain. I have convinced myself I love this place.

However, maybe I actually hate Mont Tremblant. Maybe I have created a perfect setting in my head, to have a reason to come back each year. Maybe my hatred drives me to visit each and every year. Maybe I just have to prove to myself that I am better than the mountain. Maybe each time I do not get injured at Mont Tremblant, it is a success and vice versa. Maybe for every year of the past seven years, I’ve lied to myself.

What if I stood true to myself and left this “utopia” behind?

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