It was 7:26 PM, and Jack finally left the room. “Why does he come in at this time if he already knows the answer?” Ben had asked me. “Just cause he doesn’t have homework, doesn’t mean we don’t.”
“I know, and tonight I have so much work. With Ms. Waterman’s fifty pages of reading and a nonlinear essay to write I’m gonna be up so late. Plus all of Mr. Ftorek’s work. Dude I’m gonna be up so late.”
I climbed out of my couch and turned on my Christmas lights. The calm gloomy yellow lights filled up the room and pushed me back onto the couch. Laptop open, backpack at my side, I was ready for study hall. “I never thought I’d ever have this much work,” I told Ben. “I never signed up for this. All my free time, all my sleep, and sometimes my time to eat, it’s all being used for homework.” Ben paused the audiobook he was listening to, took off one of his headphones and said, “What?” I waved my hand at him, “Forget about it.” He took his other head phone off and said, “It’s been about an hour and a half and I’m not even done with the reading for Ms. Waterman. It’s so much man, have fun.”
I sat back and let my head fall deep into the couch, as if I had stopped swimming and just let myself slowly sink to the bottom. I thought to myself, “Why, why am I working so much harder than everyone else for nothing. I should be having fun, and enjoying high school. Hours and hours of work in honors and AP classes for what? A 3.67 non-weighted GPA? To work ten times harder than students taking mainstream classes, and to get recognized at the same level of academics as them? No, none of it is worth it.”
“CHRISTIAN! Baja ahora, ya estas tarde. Si no bajas ahora voy a subir darte unos…”
Rushing down the stairs half dressed, “I’m coming, I’m coming, jeez calm down.” I reached to grab my lunch from the counter.
“Ouch! What the heck!” She had clenched onto my wrist with her long nails. She looked me in the eyes and said, “You are late, not me. Don’t ever tell me to calm down. You are a brown hispanic boy, and not a white rich kid. If you want to go to a good college, you need to work twice as hard as everyone else just to achieve the same as them.”
I yanked my hand out of her death grab, looked at her and said, “But I’m not trying to be like them.”
She replied, “Then you gotta work even harder in the classroom and play even better on the field.” I made a sassy face at her, like when a mother tells her little boy that TV time is up.
She gently lifted my head from my chin and said, “Guess who’s going to play at Hebron next year?”
I jumped with excitement and hugged her from her shoulders. “I can’t believe it, I’m so happy.” She looked at me and said, “Hebron is a great school for academics as well as soccer, and you’re going to do well, no excuses. Four years of hard work in the class then you can become a plastic surgeon in college, and make me look good when I’m really old.” We both laughed. “No way, I hate science, I wanna be a lawyer.”
My mom looked me in the eyes with this deep yet soft look that I’ll never forget. “Christian, you can do whatever you set your mind to. Never settle for anything, and always continue to fight for what you believe in. The only way you’ll know you’re getting better is if they start to hate you even more. Make them doubt you, and prove them wrong. But most importantly be yourself and be happy with who you are.”
With 300 sets of eyes focused on me, I was scared and happy at the same time. It was all over. I made it to the spring of senior year. “Like many of you, and many soon to come, I have survived high school. The long nights and early morning were all worth it. I wouldn’t be where I am today without any of all the hard work my teachers and coaches put me through. If there’s one piece of advice I could give to all you still at Hebron next year, it’s to never give up, and keep working hard because it will all soon catch up.” I looked at my mom in the back of the chapel. “Like my mother always told me, it all starts here. It’s all what you make of it, and it’s all up to you. Because of all my hard work in and out of the classroom, I am proud to announce that I will be attending…”
“Who is it?”
From the other side of the door I heard, “It’s me bro, I’m coming in.”
“Bro, I have homework,” I told him
“Dude, it’s freshmen year, no one has homework.”
“Not everyone is in seminar classes that take no mental effort to pass,” I thought of saying to him, instead I just stayed quiet.
“You’re talking to your roommate, just let me play Xbox.”
My roommate looks at me, laughs, and says, “Sounds like Jack.”
Non-Linear Essay
This was one of my last papers of the year. I feel like I did a very good job incorporating dialogue into the story as well as separating by paragraphs the events that happen. While a longer and more in depth story would have been better, the length is appropriate to convey the major message in the story. Looking back at all my previous essays, this one seems to embody all the skills I have learned throughout the year.
I really liked the way you decided to put in a possible future and the message your story had. It was both amusing and had an inspirational aspect to it. The dialogue worked well where you incorporated it and the only real issue I had was the last transitional time frame, I just couldn’t really follow it well.
Christian, I liked how the last movement in time, you giving what seems to be a graduation address, is interrupted with a flashback to your freshman year, drawing a direct line between the habits you learned early on and success they have and will bring you. I think the non-linear nature of this piece makes it particularly effective, as well as the beautiful indirect characterization of your mother.