My Life by Laura Deal

Table of Contents My Name!..........................................................................................................................3 Circle Poems - Baseball/Toy from Childhood!...................................................................4 Life in Wisconsin!...............................................................................................................5 My Neighborhood!.............................................................................................................6 A Happy Time!...................................................................................................................7 Acrostic Poems - Advice from an Adult!.............................................................................8 Special Birthday !...............................................................................................................9 Work!................................................................................................................................10

My Name ! My name means ruler over all and strong hearted, however that is not the reason that my parents gave me this name. They named me after one of their favorite guitarists in the world Eric Clapton. By now I’m sure that you know what my name is, it is Eric. Just because I have the same name as a great guitarist doesn’t mean that I can play guitar like him, but some day I might be able to. ! Another way that you could describe what my name means is like a lion fierce and strong, but also caring on the inside. It is derived from the Scandinavian name Eíríkr. It can also be spelled Erik, which is the most common way that you see it in Norse history. In all of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Finland) there have been many princes and kings with the name Eric which proves that the name means ruler. I like my name because it makes me feel like a mighty lion about ready to pounce on its prey. Prior to me, my parents, and my grandparents being born my great grandfather came from Norway when he was young so I guess the name fits because my ancestors are mainly from Norway and some of the countries from eastern Europe, but those are just traces I am mostly of Norwegian decent. I like my name and I don’t have a problem with it because I like to say that I was named after the greatest living guitarist.

Circle Poems Baseball Baseball Bat Ball Tennis Court Judge Line Football Field Cleats Hot Wheels (toy from childhood) Hot Wheels Track Hurdles Obstacle Cone Ice Cream Summer Day Trip Car

Life in Wisconsin ! Life in Wisconsin is unpredictable, especially when it comes to winter. One day it could be sunny and very warm, the next it could be very cold and snowy. In the summer it could be the opposite with temperatures in the 90s to near 100. It can be so warm that you feel like you are melting or so cold that you get goose bumps on the back of your neck. ! Whatever the weather is, no mater what sport you are at, there is one thing that sets people in Wisconsin apart from everyone else, tailgating. If you go to a Packers game in Green Bay, or a Brewers game in Milwaukee you will always see the majority of people that are there tailgating. Tailgating is when you (most of the time) bring a grill and cook food behind or in front of your vehicle (depending on if someone is parked behind you). Wisconsin is America’s dairyland, so if your live in Wisconsin and don’t like cheese your aren’t a true Wisconsinite. Some people love cheese so much that they put it on their head even though it isn’t real cheese. ! Our sports teams haven’t always had great success, there are still the select number of fans that will always stick with them through the tough times. Those tough times have been few for the Green Bay Packers who have won 13 NFL championships with 5 of them being Super Bowls. They have been called the New York Yankees of the NFL, but I think that you can’t compare the two because the Yankees have so much money to spend and the Packers are the only pro sports team to be publicly owned.

My Neighborhood ! My neighborhood is named after the two big oak trees that stand on opposite ends of the block, so it is named twin oaks. Every house has a boulevard on the other side of the sidewalk, that just makes more space to mow for people. The two oaks are like the twin towers of the neighborhood, even though they do not stand next to each other instead they are on opposite ends of the block. During the spring, summer, and fall you will almost always see kids playing outside whenever the sun is shining. During the summer almost every night there is someone out on the grill making everyone jealous of what they get to eat. Even though it is more uncommon during the winter to see kids outside there are the few nice days that you will see kids playing out in the snow. ! The streets are usually quiet the people that drive by are usually people that live along the street or at the end of the block, and the occasional person that is driving too fast. My street was resurfaced several years ago and the three courts on the other side of the street the asphalt is still very dark and untraveled. The neighborhood may be a quiet one, but it is a place where everyone is friendly, it is a nice place to live. When there is a big snow fall my neighbor goes out to his farm and gets one of his tractors to help clean up the snow.

A Happy Time ! A happy time for me was when I went to my first concert. It wasn’t truly my first concert that I have been to, but it was the first real stadium concert that I went to. I went with my dad and my dad’s friend and his family up to Minneapolis to the Target Center to see Rush play in concert. We had to leave at one o clock in the afternoon because my dad didn’t want to get up there right before it started. So we get up there around three and go to a music store that was like a half an hour from the Twin Cities, and do not leave there until around four or five. We didn’t get to the Target Center until around six because of all the traffic and it is downtown. When we got to the parking ramps there are three parking ramps for the Target Center and Target Field which share the three. When we went in to the ramp it felt like we were climbing a spiral mountain, but we still made it up. When they finally let everyone in the gate we walked in and found our seats, then we decided to go and get some food to eat since we didn’t have supper. After we were done eating we got up again and walked over to one of the setup shops and bought some shirts. Then we sat down again and waited for the concert to start. Once it started it was like there was a magnet that was making everyone stand up and it was around an hour to an hour and a half before they stopped and took around a twenty minute break before another hour set. After everything was done and we got back to the van it was around ten thirty, that was a very fun day for me.

Acrostic Poems Advice from an Adult - Respect Respect Esteem Self People Everyone Consideration Treatment Advice - Work Hard Work Overtime Respect Knowledge Head Assist Read Depict Advice - Read Read Everyday And all During the night !

Special Birthday ! My birthday three years ago was a very special one for me because my family and me got to go to Milwaukee for a Brewers game. I am some what young for my grade because my birthday is in late July so I will graduate high school when I am seventeen. My birthday that year was on a sunday so we took off on saturday and went partway down to stay in a hotel over night. That game was also a bobble head day where everyone in attendance got a free bobble head and that day it was a Robin Yount bobble head which was really cool because you get to go to a baseball game and get a free bobble head out of it. Even though we couldn’t get my name on the jumbotron when they put everyone’s name that had their birthday that day. They ended up winning that day by five so it was a good day. Even though I had a great time there I wouldn’t want to do that again on my birthday. I would rather spend my birthday at home and relax instead of having to get up go and come back around nine p.m. I’m glad that Miller Park is on the outside of Milwaukee so that when you go there you don’t have to go into the city, because I prefer a slower pace of things. That was a really fun birthday, but I probably would not do that on my birthday again.

Work ! I do not have any formal work experience, but I have worked before. I have had to mow my lawn for my parents all summer because I was paying off the Playstation 3 that I bought but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have enough money to buy so they bought it and made me work for it. It took me from May until around August to pay it off, even though my parents pay me more then what it is worth. That is not the only experience that I have, I am an alter server at my church. I do not get paid for doing that, I still like to work there. That does count for community service, but I do not know how many hours I have worked. This summer I how to get a job as an umpire for youth baseball games and I will probably give up playing legion baseball during the summer so that I can ump more games. If I ump more games then I will earn more money and I will save up at least half of it and have the other half to spend. I will still have to mow for my parents, but that is ok because they will still pay me even though they will not actually give me money they will put it on a spreadsheet how much I have to spend. It is good that I have some experience even if it is only mowing my lawn it is still work experience though.