English 10

For the first five days of spring break, my family went to Tofino to go surfing. We met almost all of my cousins there and it was a lot of fun. There were eight of us kids on the trip. We drove halfway there on Sunday after I had sailed all day, and then on Monday, we drove the last two hours to Tofino. Later that day at about two o’clock, we had a surfing lesson. That was a lot of fun but also just about drained me. It was really strenuous on my whole body and I got quite dehydrated from all the salt water that got in my mouth. It was also about 20 degrees outside and I was wearing a wetsuit to keep warm in the water. After my lesson, which was three hours long, I and my brother Alex went back to our room to drink some water and change. We had all of our cousins over to our hotel room to have dinner and talk about how we shredded the barrels and how gnarly our day was. The next day, we had another lesson and then rented our own gear and went surfing with our cousins. We ate at the burger shack at our resort for supper that day. Afterward, we met on the beach and sat around a fire and made smores.  We all had a good time. The next morning (Wednesday) we went surfing in the morning at 9:30 and got out of the water at about 11:30. Checkout was at 11, so we didn’t have a room, but our aunt was staying an extra day so we showered there and had lunch. After lunch, we drove home and crashed into bed. It was an amazing mini-vacation.

The stinky smells flooded into his nose again.

He turned over on his bed, covered his head with his blanket. The squeaking of his bed made him feel even colder, and goose bumps showed up all over his arms. He sighed heavily and sat up, rubbing them. It was a bit, well, chilly there. He retracted back into his blanket and began to look a his room up and down for the one millionth time.

It is a tiny room down in the basement with very unpleasant conditions, dark and damp. The light bulb hanging from the roof is blinking, and it always shakes when someone walks on the floor above him. Sometimes he stared at the roof, but he could see nothing other than the light bulb and some rusty big pipes going through. There was water stain on the empty mottled wall. He can hear the young girl in the next room bring her “customer” to her room again. The groan of the girl and the low voice of a man mixed together, as well as the squeaking of bed from her room. He felt his head was going to explode.

He opened his mouth and sat straight, prepared to shout at his noisy neighbour. Then suddenly he bowed his back and sighed again, more heavily. She is also new to here, to this cruel, cold city of Shanghai. She does this just to make a living, to survive, I should understand, he thought. Depression surrounded him, some voices began to argue in his head. “You came to this city to fight for your dream, not staying in some stinky old room to hear this.” Another voice raised up: “This is not what you were looking for, but you can only succeed after you go through these.” “Can you really do something in here?” “You will never succeed, because you will never fit in this modern city, like ever.”

Lying back down to his bed, he began to feel a little tired as the never-ending arguments faded away. It was a brand new world in his dream:

It was the first time he stepped into the city of Shanghai, which had always been somewhere he wanted to see. Like he had heard before, there were many girls dressed up like superstars which he had never imagined before; the colourful bright lights on the street showed how busy the night life of Shanghai is; high-class cars passing by on the street, sending people home after another exhausting work day; and foreigners with blonde hair and blue eyes that he had never seen before. Modern, fashion, prosperous and beautiful… He lacked words to describe how much passion and love he had for Shanghai the moment he saw it.

“Wow, this is Shanghai.” He murmured. He didn’t know what is waiting for him behind all those illusions.

Suddenly, all those fancy, dreamy factors disappeared. There was only black and black in his sight. He felt like the blackness would suck him in.

“Here is your room.” A short bald man pushed the door and turned the light on. The sound of electricity sizzling attracted his attention to the room. “Catch the key.” The man said impatiently when he threw the key at him. The man walked upstairs right away and slammed the door which leads to the outside of the basement, showing his hatred towards this tiny little space.

He took a deep breath and stepped into his new home. He put his old suitcase on the ground and unzipped it.

“Hey.”

He was surprised and looked back immediately.

There was a young girl leaning against the doorframe. She wore heavy makeup, which doesn’t match her age at all. And looked down… Her clothes were so sexy that most of her skin was exposed to his sight. She noticed his sights and looked at herself and laughed, “Oh, sorry. This is my work costume.” She was silent for a few seconds, and looked up at him again, “You want a cigarette?”

“Umm… sure.” He was a bit nervous. He scratched his head and smiled at her to make the air less awkward.

“Here, take this.” She took out two cigarettes from a black cigarette case, one for him and one for her. She held the cigarette in her mouth, bent her left hand to cover it, and pressed the button on the lighter to light it up. She inhaled heavily as soon as the cigarette began to burn. Then he did the same thing to light up his cigarette.

“Thank you.” He said, holding the cigarette between his two fingers and staring at the ground, he tried to say something but he didn’t know what.

She exhaled. The white smoke came out between her red lips, rose up and disappeared into the moist air. “I came to Shanghai after I finished high school, to find a job and support my parents and younger siblings. I tried. But even being a waitress in a restaurant requires a university degree, or you could only work in a small shop with extreme low wages, maybe even not working legally. I had to pay my rent as well, so I started this job. Anyway I am still earning money, with my own body. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, at least I didn’t harm anyone or anything, even though it’s illegal. To save money and cut down all the costs, I chose to live here, sharing a basement with strangers.” She stopped talking to let the last breath of smoke come out of her lung. She threw the cigarette butt on the cold stone ground and watched the redness fade away gradually, “I miss my home very much but I earn more here. Shanghai is a city full of opportunities and risks at the same time, I love it here, though it will be lonely sometimes.”

Looking him into the eyes, she apologized, “Sorry I talked too much. I just couldn’t help myself, I need someone to share it with.”

“It’s ok.” He seemed to be processing the things he just heard, “How old are you? How long have you been here?”

“19. I’ve been here for about one year.” She answered.

“One year? Living in this dark, wet basement?” He was stunned and worried, both for her and for himself.

“Yeah, this is what you need to sacrifice or go through to make a better life for the future of you and your family. This is how this city works for newcomers like us.” She chuckled.

“Newcomers like us… like us… us…” The voice was echoing in the basement, louder and louder that his head started to hurt.

“No!!” He screamed while he sat up and tried to catch his breath. After taking a quick look at his alarm clock, he lied down and began to try to calm himself down. He was having that dream again, the dream that reminds him about his first day in Shanghai.

There was super loud party music playing on a well-decorated ferry that was moving on the HuangPu River. Skyscrapers and the European-style architecture stood steadily on the two sides, like they were protecting the city. Crowds were cheering and taking photos at the Bund. On that fancy ferry, a man was sitting in a big, comfy chair with a pleasant expression on his face. Several young girls were standing around him and kept on raving and rolling their bodies. “One more shot, manager. One more!” One of them held a wine bottle in her hand and said so. “Hahahaha.” He laughed in lewd in a disgusted way and grabbed on her waist.

Back in the basement, she was counting the money that she has earned today after the last customer left. Next door, he was still struggling with the nightmare that’s been haunting him.

It is meant to be a sleepless night for him.

Ever since I was around 8 years old, I wanted to become an interior designer. I want to own my own interior design company because I’ve always loved using my creativity to design things. As far as university goes, I will be starting university at 18 because I am planning on doing a gap year to get my life together before I go back to school. I’m also planning on moving out the summer after I graduate high school, which may not be a great idea because I will only be 17, but I’m just going to wing it and hope it works out. I want to move out with my best friend because learning from my brother, it doesn’t always workout living with your significant other right after high school. Farther into the future, I want to have the stereotypical perfect life. Marriage, owning a house, having kids, all things most people would want in their future. I want to have 4 kids which I know, is a lot to handle but I think it will work out. I want 3 girls and 1 boy, and I’m crazy so I already picked out names for all of them. Jackson would be the boy and he would be the oldest, then 3 years later there would be twin girls, Alex and Adelyn, 3 years after that there would be another girl named Zhavia. I want to build my own house even though I know it will cost a lot of money, I will still be able to design it all myself and make it exactly how I want it. Overall, I am trying to give myself a general idea of what I want to do in the future so I don’t end up like my brother, working at London drugs and living in a basement suite.

When I grow up, I want to become a pilot for Luftanza. I want to become a pilot because you get to see new places from the air, which most people don’t get to see on a daily basis. I went to do a discovery flight at the Victoria Flying Club and I got to fly a Cessna for half an hour. I really enjoyed that experience. It made me realize that I wanted to become a pilot. I want to fly for Luftanza because I have one of the harder requirements already completed. I need to be fluent in German and English and I just need to practice my German but then I will have that requirement done. I still need to be a German citizen and have a German passport which will take time. I also need to go to pilot school to get my commercial pilot’s license which is about a 2-year course. Before you can get your commercial pilots license you need to get your private pilotslicense which can be done in as littel as thirty days. there is no excate amount of time to get it, as it is based off of flight hours but about six months to one year. It will be great to be a pilot but the one main downside of being one will be being away from my family for sometimes days on end and pretty constantly. Other than that, it will be a great job to have. I will have to start in small planes for short flights, but eventually, I will be able to move up to bigger airplanes.

Personal Project – Arantxa Gomez – 21/03/19

Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in the world? Who would you want to go there with?

I will travel to Disney World with my boyfriend Patricio. I feel that Disney is this magical world where we can go back to our childhood and bring back beautiful memories. We can be children again without being judged. Also, we can see the beautiful views the city of Orlando provides, walk in parks with big lakes, fountains, and places to have dinner. Orlando is this place, with fantastic shopping, world-class theme parks, lively nightlife, wild nature experiences, and many other activities.

 

I had just started at a new school. I had never been to public school before and all the girls looked like they were straight out of a Vogue magazine. They almost looked plastic. I looked nothing like them. Strawberry blonde hair and emerald green eyes. That’s what I had. I knew from the second I walked in, I was different.

The first week was difficult. Passing my ex, Jacob in the halls everyday. He was different than the last time I saw him. He had more friends now and he seemed happier. I wasn’t expecting him to talk to me, but at lunch on Friday he asked me if I wanted to go to the football game with him that Sunday. I thought it was odd because we hadn’t talked in months. So, I prepared myself with football terminology that weekend and all of a sudden it was time to go.

I went to the football field. No lights. No fans. No cheerleaders. No football teams. And most importantly, no Jacob. I was played. He never planned on coming to the football game with me because there was no football game. It was just to see how stupid I am, and I fell for it.

I ran home, hysterically crying. My phone rang a couple times but I never answered. When I got home, I headed straight to the bathroom. Tears streaming down my face, I opened the medicine chest. I found a bottle of small frosty white pills. “Celexa” it read on the bottle of depression meds prescribed to my older sister. I swallowed 1, 2, 3, 4 of the pills. I opened my phone. One new voicemail. “Hey ginger snap! Having fun at the football game?” Jacob said. Him and his friends laughed in the background of the message. “I knew you would fall for it”. The message ended, and so did I.

My name is Grace Stevenson and this is my suicide story.

Telephone is no doubt one of the important devices of communicating messages in a relatively short period. Over the telephone one even hears the voice of the person who sends us the message and this makes the message more personal.

The reason why I think this is the invention that changed the most the world it is that when you write a letter you could express your feelings but there could be a misunderstanding between what you want to express and what the reader gets to understand. The other reason is that instead of getting the letter days later of been sent, you can get a message or a phone call at the moment

If I could go anywhere in the whole world, I think I could go somewhere tropical and say in a resort. I think I would go when it is winter here so I can escape the cold. I would most like to go to Bora Bora. I want to go there because I have seen pictures and it looks absolutely stunning. The water is crystal clear and the beaches are beautiful. I would take all my friends and we would go to the beach every day. It would be a welcome break from the cold wetness of winter here in Victoria. I want to go to a resort that is right on the beach so we can walk from our hotel room to the beach very quickly and see the sunsets over the water. That would be so beautiful. We would go in the winter so when it is cold and rainy here, we can escape to Bora Bora and go swimming in the ocean. Another benefit of going in the winter is that it wouldn’t be as busy as in the summer but it would still be warm.

It is excited to know that there are only 10 days left before the spring break starts. I believe that everyone in the school has been anticipating that moment for these 3 months. Before the break started, I’ve already planned out my schedule for my precious time of only 2 weeks in China. Firstly, eating is the most important thing. I would taste every Chinese dishes I favored until my stomach is full. I can’t imagine how happy would I be when I smelled the odor of those food. It is miserable for Chinese students to stay in Canada, a North American country with mainly western food and limited amount of Chinese food. Secondly, I would meet up with my friends and go shopping, watching movies and having fun together. Even though I have a groups of friends here in this school, I still missed them a lot and cannot forget the joyful time when we were together. More importantly, I would spend my time staying with my families, accompanying them and sharing my wonderful experience in Canada. I wish that the 10 days can pass as quickly as they can.

Over the past year my perfect weekend has varied so much. When I first turned 14, I really liked hanging out at home trying to make things or just spending time with a couple people. I wasn’t particularly close with anyone besides my two bestfriends at the time and one guy that I was talking to who lives in Mexico.

A couple months later I started going to a lot of Wills hockey games with Adala, and then my perfect weekend would be going to a game and then hanging out with a couple of guys on the team then going back to my house or Adala’s house and hang out for a bit longer.

After that my friend and I started recreating my brothers old “hang out area” which was a huge black berry bush that they hollowed out to create a dome. We would spend hours in my back acre cutting the thorny bushes down and putting up swings and we ended up putting up a cargo net.

During the beginning of summer I really enjoyed putting up my tent and having a friend over to have a camp fire and sleep in the tent for a night or two, but by the end of the summer I just wanted to hangout by myself most weekends. My friend who lives up the road would come over and try to get me to go out and do something but I never really did and we grew more distant.

Once school started I try to do something on Saturday and then I stay at home and relax on Sunday and try to get my homework done. I find that it is a really good balance and I can prepare for the next week that way. If I had no responsibilities I would probably keep the same routine but focus more on self care on Sundays.

If I could have a chance to be free of any responsibilities for the whole weekend, I would take my time to do all the crazy things I’ve been wanted to.

On Friday night, I will go to a nice restaurant with my friends all dressed up, to treat myself for going through another week of hard work. After dinner, we are going to take a walk along the sea, seeing the sunset or the stars. Then we will change into another outfit and put on makeup and go to the fanciest and most exclusive club in the city. I just want to dance in the loud music and the big crowd and forget about everything and just be myself for a moment. Finally, we will go to the airport to get on our private jet to the Caribbean Sea.

Waking up in a tropical place on Saturday morning and with a mood for getting tanned, we would love to rent a yacht with a sailor and an excellent cook and head to a peaceful part of the sea. We are going to spend the whole day on the sea, having sunbath, eating fresh seafoods from the sea, swimming and dancing with our sunglasses on, or just talking about random things. During the beautiful sunset, we need to open some champagne or wine bottles, to savor and capture this moment. When the night falls, we will observe all the stars and listen to the waves of the sea until we fall asleep.

Sunday, the last day of the weekend, I would love to go to New York or Florence to go shopping in the most luxurious places. But before that, we will go to a salon to get our nails, hair and makeup done. After buying myself all my favourite things, I want to have a nice, decent dinner on a rooftop with the view to the whole city with my friends, dressed up and enjoy the last moment before going back to work/school.

After all these, we have to get back to where we live and continue on with our lives. This may sounds like a big plan, but I have done many of these things already, with my family or my friends, and I really loved those wonderful moments. I hope I can have more amazing moments like this, to live my life. Like they said, live it up cause you only got one life, you don’t get it twice.

Have you ever wanted to get into shape fast? Click this link to find out more –> As John’s mouse was hovering over the website, his best friend Jerry came bursting into the door with such gusto, he almost knocked the door down. John!!! he screamed, I got us gym tickets to the new gym down the road! This was very big news for John, it was the first year that his parents would let him go to the gym. He was a very skinny kid, Jerry was even more but he looked a lot stronger because he was a lot shorter, John on the other hand was very tall and his skinny body gave him a very lanky and spindly appearance which he got bullied at school for. Jerry and John had been planing this moment for 2 years and now, finally, the day had come, it was finally time. Jerry and Josh were walking down the street to the gym. They both had matching dry sweat shirts and sweat pants. As they were coming to the parking lot of the gym, they saw these huge massive men walking around, to them, they didn’t mind the little kids standing there but to Jerry and Josh, the men looked like savages, or, no, titans, ready for war. As Jerry entered the gym, he felt the cool swoosh of air hit him. It was the best feeling ever. It made him forget about the huge men in the parking lot and gave him a new boost of confidence. As the two young boys walked into the gym, confidence pouring from every inch of them, they looked in  and stopped…

Personal Writing – Arantxa Gomez – 03/06/19                  What job or career do you want when you grow up? Why?

When I grow up, I want to study finance. Why? Well, first, my dad and mom studied a similar career, they studied public accounting. My dad told me that studying finance will teach me more, he said it was a more complete career than the one he studied. So it calls me a lot of attention.  And since I have always been really interested in Math and I enjoy it, I think this career will really suit me. Also, I want to help my dad in his work and later create my own companies. But I have to start with something and I think my dad would be the best teacher.

Another career I will consider studying is nutrition, since two years ago, I’m really into it. I know it’s a completely different career than the one I have as an option 1. But I want to try both of them and graduate with a speciality.

I want to have a speciality in taxes and later do my master’s and doctoral degrees. Just like my dad. He’s my example to follow.

Here i am, sitting in a chair with nothing in my mind but thoughts; thoughts about the future and the past; the things i want to do and the things I’ve done, good and bad.

Good and bad, it feels like a fight inside my head. Both sides wanting to gain control over me all the time. My mind is restless, it is so tired of putting so much effort into keeping a balance in both sides, i might just give up and let it be, let it choose a side and surrender to it, good or bad. The consequences are worthless, it is like yin and yang; you have the bad in the good and the good in the bad. That is how life is, not perfect; but you learn to love it, the good and the bad, it all depends in the perspective and ways you look at things, but every moment is priceless in this life.

Do you ever have this sense of having everything fall upon yourself, as if the world is against your shoulders, weighing you down as you simply have no clue of how to cope with it? This statement has been on my mind for the past 48 hours and the reason why I want to write about this is that I also am clueless about how to handle this pain. For the past week, a lot of trauma occurred, it included family issues and countless shocking confusion that has been troubling me mentally. The worst part of all is the fact that I can never talk or even mention a single bit to anyone around me. Not only do I need to endure all this alone, but I am also not doing so well academically from all this torture. These “things” has been killing my mind and draining all my energy to the point of nauseousness and blackouts takes place pretty often. By no means am I craving for the sympathy of such, I just had to get it out there somehow without telling anyone the secrets I’ve been keeping throughout. I am not sure when will this harsh feeling of mine disappear or at least ease down, but one thing for sure is that only time can tell.