I Believe in Miracles

            Another day of English goes by and a paper-cut appears on my hand. Or maybe scissors created the blemish? Perhaps a crayon somehow scarred my hand. “Impossible!” you say to yourself.  “Only an idiot could cut himself with a crayon.” Well I have a confession to make: I am that idiot when it comes to art. In fact, when my English teacher informed the class last week that we would participate in a friendly competition involving creativity and imagination, my stomach landed on top of a freshman’s head while she sat in Mr. Kerul’s room. I hate art for a variety of reasons. To begin with, sharp objects and I go about as well together as Hanukah and Christmas. Let us flashback to my sixth grade year when my entire grade took a field trip to The Pond. To this day I do not understand how the ice became sprinkled with red while a puddle of blood formed in my right hand, all happening while part of my right pointer finger dangled from a thin piece of skin. I ended up losing that small portion of my finger and have the scar in remembrance. Again, I do not do well with sharp objects, like ice skates. Only to make matters worse, my siblings found it amusing to call me Peter Pettigrew the following month after the incident. Hopefully I have portrayed the fact that art utensils and I butt heads. My rock bottom creativity also adds to my distaste for crafts, such as creating collages. Allow me to explain. I think most teenagers enjoy decorating their Christmas tree with their siblings. I, however, can barely tolerate the experience. Many of my family’s ornaments come from the creations of the Stevenson children at young ages. Unfortunately, I learned how to draw a circle after I learned how to ride a bike. Therefore, the ornaments I created at a young age deem indistinguishable. My siblings, always the genuine supporting cast I need in my life, ask me if Stevie Wonder helped me meld together an attempted image of a star and manger. My creativity and skills with a marker depicted itself again just this past November. One of my mother’s friends walked into our home and pointed to one of my youthful decorations hanging on the wall: “Wow Barb! I cannot believe you’ve already started decorating for Thanksgiving!” In actuality, my mother had yet to relieve the walls from our Halloween decorations. Ouch. Despite these slight artistic disabilities, here I sit today, alive and well, writing on a keyboard with ten fingers and two eyes after cutting out magazines and gluing my hands together. I suppose miracles do have a tendency to happen.

The Power of Analyzation

            People express their personalities in hundreds of different ways nowadays. Individuals use clothing, shoes, cars, bumper stickers, jewelry, phone cases and other possessions to tell the world of their certain interests and pet-peeves. Posters remain one of the most widely utilized ways to assert such personality traits. I take myself as an example. If one has the honor to walk up the steps of my household to the hallway connecting my family’s bedrooms, they would see a larger-than-life size poster of the famous Sandra Bullock hanging from one of the doors. Not risqué in the slightest bit, this poster captures the amazing beauty of the brilliant actress in a gorgeous snow white dress, batting those mysterious luscious eyes of overwhelming delicacy. Above the worldly goddess resides a poster containing a cartoon replica of spider-man. To the right of this Marvel superhero sits Kobe Bryant, staring menacingly at the stairwell. After briefly analyzing the decoration of this door, one can imply that, most likely, two boys share this dormitory. Through the depiction of the posters containing a basketball superstar and an actress, one can infer that the older boy sleeping in this room loves sports while also possessing an unbelievable taste in women. From analyzing the Marvel poster, a bystander can come to the conclusion that the younger boy sharing this room enjoys movies and reading. Both assumptions would deem correct in this situation. So, if a simple poster depicts specific details about the owner, what does the poster hanging in Ms. Serensky’s room containing characters from the Harry Potter series portray? To begin with, I question why the poster chosen for our teacher’s room includes an advertisement for the fifth Harry Potter movie. The date on the bottom of the poster, depicting the release of the “Order of the Phoenix,” portrays that the hanger of the advertisement obtained the propaganda before the release of the last two movies. The poster’s owner’s decision to hang this poster however, a symbolic representation of the darkest of J.K. Rowling’s novels at the time, creates numerous implications surrounding the owner of the ad. I can infer that the inhabitant of the room containing the poster possesses a dark sense of humor as well as a complex mind. Those fascinated by the magical fantasies of Harry Potter and profound genius of Rowling’s work prove extremely intellectual. I support this claim through personal experiences. Also, the teacher’s decision to include a poster portraying various characters instead of a single witch or wizard proves interesting. The numerous characters represent the open-mindedness of the owner of the poster. Instead of analyzing things from one perspective, the possessor depicts his/her ability to evaluate things from numerous views. Finally, the poster’s deceptive location tells me much about its owner. By placing the poster nonchalantly on a filing cabinet in the back of the room, the teacher wishes to portray to others that the object proves of little value to her. However, the ad, almost directly sitting across from the teacher’s desk, depicts the necessity the owner feels in gazing at the propaganda. In conclusion, despite acting as if the Harry Potter books play a minimal role in her life, our English teacher lives day to day with the fond memories of Hogwarts.

Bitter Sweet

            The AP English Student of the Month Award remains one of the most valued endowments in the school. At least I like to think this. As the year progresses, however, such a distinction becomes less…well distinct I suppose. The preposterous fact that no person may receive the award more than once parallels the same philosophy to that of my kindergarten soccer coach. Sure, many of my teammates found it entertaining to pick daisies as the ball rolled pass their ankles. Sure, none of the kids on the field could even spell scoreboard. Sure, most of the players on my team showed up week after week solely for the free, grape snowcone they received after the game. However, these actions should not diminish the fact that, when the game ended, one team lost and one team won. Yet my coach allowed these small factors to change the rules of the world. After the game, my coach assured us that “we were all winners,” even after a lost. When we won, I knew the exact same scenario happened on the opposing sideline. I figured that I, a responsible human being, would inform the players on the other team that in actuality, they were in fact losers and that their coach lied to them simply to make them feel better. I remember this happening one Saturday morning, while lining up to shake hands with the other team after the game. My coach taught us to go through the line and say “Good game” to each of the opposing players. Even though anyone with the slightest math background understood that my team won the game by five goals, I knew that the opposing coach had repeated the cursed statement to his players. So, I figured I would act as the better man and go through the line saying, “7-2. 7-2. 7-2” and so on and so forth. However, I learned to live through countless scenarios of “spreading the wealth” (although my mother demanding that I share my Skittles with another boy because he cried almost killed me). For this reason, I believe that I will persevere through the rest of the school year, with the rest of my fellow AP English Students of the Month Award winners, despite knowing the fact that we will never again win such an award. Therefore, I will attempt to live by the cliché, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Although winners of this high honor will never again feel the suspense that comes during the drum roll before the announcement of the victor of the award, I urge ex-winners to set aside their distaste for the rules of the world and support their new brethren. For example, brainstorming photo ideas for the new hero would prove exceptionally helpful. As the year continues, I expect the photo shots of the monthly winners to become more and more creative. Despite Osgood’s past, visionary pose, jumpstarted with Hinman’s stellar mannequin performance, I think such a goal remains reachable.