Overcoming pain

summer narrative

“I am more than my scars.”
― Andrew Davidson

The pain never stops. Physically and mentally tortured for thirteen hours in the air, the pain never stopped. From the time I arrived at the airport, there was not one moment I didn’t experience physical or mental pain. I thought the plane ride was going to be fun, so many new movies, delicious deserts and questionable food. But those were just my wildest dreams. I still clenched my first, and bit down hard on my tongue until it bled, “let’s just get this over with.”

I sat in front the boarding gate, there’s still two and a half hours left until I was actually going to board the plane. I kept wondering why we had to come to the airport so early, there’s just no point of doing that. I had to watch YouTube for about two hours with my half broken headphones while having the most terrible WiFi. It was a truly fun experience. I was extremely patient and after two hours, we finally got on the plane, but then it was delayed for some reason. At that point I wanted to rage, but my rationality overcame my rage and I again, decided to be patient again. The plane took off, I did not know how important patience would be later in my life, and how useful it would be for almost the entire flight.

“It’s time for me to watch some nice movies,” I thought as I tried the screen in front of me.
Just as my hand touched the power button, the seat in front pulled back with extreme speed. Because my face was a bit too close to the screen, my nose hit the seat therefore delivering a tremendous amount of pain. My tears were urging to come out as I pressed my nose with my hands, I felt the hot blood dripping out of my nose and anger. Instead of raging I stayed positive.
“At least my nose is not broken.” I thought. I was too busy to rage anyways, so
I calmed down and started watching the movies. The screen was close to my face, I felt like my nose is actually touching the screen but I was so drawn by the amazing movies that I’ve never seen before, then pain on my nose disappeared. I really started to think that all the pain was worth it. I learned that the person in front of me pulled his chair back because the person in front of him did. I was happy that my positivity prevented me from having a unnecessary conflict. Anger and rage were never going to get me anywhere in life.

It’s been seven hours in the air and I’m getting real tired. Sleep was the one thing I needed the most, and so I closed my eyes ready for good nap. I then fell asleep within minutes. All was well until I was suddenly woken by the cries of little boys and girls. I was a very polite and patient person by then, so I didn’t really care that much. But after that I was woken up the sound of crying over and over again. It was to a point where I couldn’t fall asleep anymore. I kept myself really calm, but I couldn’t do anything about it. Although I was tired and annoyed but then I realized my nose stopped bleeding, that’s something positive. My exhaustion however, didn’t allow me to think that much, and so I dug my head in the pillow over and over again. I never gave up and just kept trying, and finally the kids were asleep. It was peaceful, quiet as my eyes started close slowly and then I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

I opened my eyes, and I looked out the window. I can see my city, the city where I’ve spend my entire childhood in. The sky was clear, I can see my city, every car, every house, every skyscraper. Home sweet home.

Things Happen

journal entry #2

“There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” —John Paul Jones

I could hear sirens of the ambulance as it was approaching. The kid on the field was suffocating, but extreme pain made him stay still. The boy was surrounded by about five faculties, some checking him and some spraying water. He got trampled, ran over by ten other kids, and his back shouldn’t look too good. The Fay football player soon got on the ambulance the sirens started to fade into the distance. A fine alumni party was now ruined. “Football is a dangerous sport,” I told my friends. Some people nodded instead of saying “I agree,” because their mouths were stuffed with burgers. People soon went back to what they were doing before as if nothing happened. Oh, these poor naive people will never have any idea of what’s coming to them next.

Badminton was one of my favorite sports, I’ve been playing ever since I was in kindergarten back in China. My team was beating the other team by about one hundred and seventy nine points, and some people on the other team were even rage quitting. I felt really bad for completely destroying their ego, so I offered to be on the other team. After like ten minutes our team was winning by sixty eight points, and every time I win I would yell “thanos car or thanos shoe.” Soon everyone lost interest and since we were all hungry we decided to get lunch.

The burger that I payed eight dollars for was disgusting, so I decided to steal some food from the band. I went over to the band room, saw my friend Michael. “Hi Lukas,” he greeted. I ignored him because I was dying of starvation. I asked one of the staffs if I can get pizza. She hesitated but still told me I can in the very end. “Pizza’s not enough,” I thought to myself, so I then asked for some Capri sun. The staff hesitated again but still said yes. “Your not suppose to take them,” Michael cried. Once again, I ignored him because my mouth was stuffed with the delicious pizza and the thirst quenching Capri sun I got from the band room.

After I was done eating, I went to the field again. We played a bit of badminton again but then we say something we’d never dream of, the bouncy castle. Did we care we were ninth graders, no because there was a sign clearly stating “has to be ten or above to enter.” I raced one of my friends and he being not very athletic, unlike me, lost the race. Then I was up for my second challenge, a tenth grader. We both got ready and just as Mr. Santos said go, I sprinted while avoiding obstacles and hopping over things. Surprisingly I got there first. Then I waited for the tenth grader but there was no sign of him. Time passed by but he could not be seen, it was then I heard sounds of the ambulance siren. He dislocated his knee. Once again, another patient got on the ambulance, then the sirens started to fade away in the distance.

I stood there and gazed at the ambulance until it disappeared. It left me thinking how easily an accident can happen. Although it wasn’t anything fatal, we should still be grateful that we’re all healthy living beings. However when accidents do happen to us, be positive and don’t let that effect our lives.

Or maybe they were incidents all alone.

Losing and winning

A slice of life

X“There is nothing in this world more to be prized than true friend ship” —Thomas Aquinus

It was a bright spring day, the sun rose from the horizon and shined on the glorious white buildings of fenn. It was early in the morning, and there were chill and soft winds blowing.  I got to school really early, at about six, totally not prepared for the presidential campaign. I made some cards to give out but there was totally not enough time. After that I went to the drop off circle and handed cards while other people was handing super cool things(not to blame anyone but my partner showed up at eight), that made me looked like a complete fool. Michael and I were so not prepared that we did not even have anything ordered online. That was a extremely valuable lesson, I swore to myself that I would never do things unprepared again. 

Michael and I finally figured out what to buy online, but it was going to take about three days to ship; the campaign would be over at that time. However since I was quite an intellectual, soon a solution was found. With my incredible problem solving abilities and creativity. I knew that a normal human being would be abscessed with popping  bubbles on a piece bubble wrap, because how satisfying they were. I also didn’t want to waste most of our campaign budget for some “other” reasons, so I bought those cheap, cheap huge rolls of bubble wraps. I then cut them into medium sized squares and made about 300 of them, and obviously my great partner did not help at all. The next morning, I handed out bubble wraps and people just go absolutely nuts with it and everything went pretty well. 

My second problem came right after the second day. It was still a fine morning, until Mr.Ward came and asked that if we have permission  to gave out bubble wraps. He said that popping them would be very distracting in class, both for the teacher and the students. Mr.Ward then asked Mr.Boonisar if that was allowed. Of corse everything worked out at the end, because I told Mr.Boonisar that about half of my campaign budget went into the purchase of bubble wraps(which was true considered the amount I bought). I was then allowed to hand the out but I had to give warnings to people. Michael came at around eight again and told me that handing out bubble wraps was a terrible idea, such positivity! 

After the a successful week of campaigning, all my friends think that I hated Michael because he did absolutely nothing. We did have a few arguments and some unpleasant time, but in the end, I thought nothing was more important than friendship. The point of campaigning was really the process of helping two people to know each other better, but all we did was complain. I did not blame anyone for losing the campaign but myself, if only did I become more positive and supportive because after all, all that mattered was having a great time with my friend.

Journal entry #1 

“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”
—Carl Jung

     It’s five in the morning and I am still awake. This stupid, stupid journal is nothing but pure torture. I begin banging my head on the wall, and I can feel the hot blood dripping down from my forehead. My mind is twisted and bent, how can I write about anything? But then the thought of Mr.Fitz tearing my skin off forced my think hard again. Writing anything that the writer wishes might sound easy, but it is really the process of thinking that makes it hard. Me personally, when asked to just think and write down everything that I remember; I will have lots of troubles doing just that. I would not say that my ability to memorize is completely terrible, but under the some circumstances, when people are under pressure, they tend to forget things that just happened more easily.

     In global studies today, Mr.Sharon started playing rap music all of a sudden, then he left the classroom. After about two minutes he came back asking us to write down everything that happened after he left. “There was no right or wrong answer,”he said, but I still couldn’t remember a thing. My brains simply did not mark the things that happened two minutes ago as important, and I was also feeling nervous for some entirely random reason, so it was almost impossible for me to remember anything and I was very sad. After that not only did I get a better understanding of my brain, I also learned that writing just anything is actually harder than writing about a specific thing.

     Since I have a better understanding of very own brain, it is probably the best for me to start analyzing myself. My English teacher Mr.Fitz thinks that I am quite an intellectual, but am I? First I have to define what it means to be smart. Being smart basically means that having a very high ability of “acquiring and applying knowledge and skills,” this quote is from Wikipedia, and am I a person who has such skills? Now this particular question forced me to think again, and from what I can recall, I have never marked anything related to this topic important.                  

     This means that I have no idea how good my ability of “acquiring and applying knowledge and skills” is. The only way that I will figure out what I am good at is through my actions, and with the remainder of how my brain tend to remember things marked important; I will sure mark the, this time. During this entire year, I will not only figure out my ability of “acquiring and applying knowledge and skills,” but also improve Improving my skills as a reader and a writer is my goal, they all seem to be pretty easy goals if I put enough effort into all my writings and books.

     Writing about anything might seem hard to me, but writing about why it is difficult is easy. I am sure sooner or later, I will find a specific topic to write about. I will also learn about my ability of “acquiring and applying knowledge and skills,” learn about my advantages in reading and writing and improve. I will make my writings deeper, more emotional, and how to use words correctly to actually have the effects. I am sure English is going to be great this year.