Coming Home Again

   This short story is about a boy who is filling in his mother's spot. His mother has cancer and she's dieing. This young boy does what his mother would do for the family. He cooks cleans and does what a mother would do. He attends his mother and tries his best to get things done. The guilt of his mother about letting him go to boarding school is like no other. The guilt she feels is sadness but happiness at the same time.

   While he was in the kitchen his mother had commented that she made a mistake by letting him go off to boarding school if she had know that she was going to die. Then she reacted and said it was better for him to not see her get worse each day. I think it would have hurt her more to let her son see her die a little more each day. Life does go on and as a mother she wanted the best and probably didn't want him to suffer. In her head she probably thought it would hurt him less and he would be able to live on. He did live on but he kept the memory of her and wonder about her and what she was doing. He'd see the image of his parents when they pulled over as she was dieing, but he didn't suffer just like his mother thought he wouldn't. He did suffer but his mother would be proud of how he got through.

Summary Chapter 3

There is a simple piece of advice that's some people leave out. Revising is an important step. It's a good thing to write your draft and then put it aside for a while or even over night. It's also good to put yourself in the audiences shoes. While you revise you should ask yourself questions like, "Does this make sense?" "Is the information accurate?", etc.

Revising is also editing the paper by fixing grammar errors like, punctuation. If you reread you will be able to catch errors you did not see the first time. Another good way to improve your essay would be to let other readers read your essay and give u feedback on what could be changed or improved.

I'm going to take this advice by writing my own rough draft one day and rereading it the next. I will also have two people read it as well, so what one doesn't catch the other does. I will also try to use the feedback as suggestions so I can improve my essay.

Summary For Chapter 2

    When you are about to start an essay you should first do a rough draft. A rough draft can be built using an outline, free write, list, or a diagram. Your rough draft should practically be messy. Joan Didion said, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means."
    
    Your introduction should say what your body paragraphs will be about and point out the main idea which is the thesis. The body paragraphs develop support for your thesis. so always have a tentative thesis before you start writing. When its about time to wrap up your essay you write a paragraph that's called a conclusion. A conclusion helps the reader remember what the thesis is and what your essay talked about. By the time you write your conclusion your readers should have understood your main point. At the end of your conclusion you could give advice, an image, or a quote to wrap it all up.

    Now that I read this chapter I understand why my rough draft didn't seem like an essay at all. I kept putting down ideas and didn't exactly point out the main idea or got to the point. I plan to do an outline and putting an idea in each body paragraph and writing down the ideas that fit in each paragraph. I want to start like a free write, once i have all my ideas i want to take out the useless information and find what the main idea is to make my thesis. Then finally editing my rough draft so i can do my final essay.

Essay 1 =)

           In my life I've had some tough times and I didn't think I could make it through but I did. This picture is the symbol of hope and faith for me. Here's a little background on this picture. I used to not believe in miracles or anything until I accepted Christ. I followed him and started to pray and trust him. I fell behind and i let him go but with the separation of my parents he called me back. I started to pray and hope to him that things would get better. I had to have some faith and let life go through its course or it wouldn't do any good. This symbol is an image that can remind you of many things.

Sometime many of us hit bumps in our lives and we feel like we cant get through them on our own, and that we need someone with us to help us. this image shows us that we need to be strong and have hope that things will get better soon. We shouldn't give up so easily. I can be very sentimental sometimes and its hard for me when things go wrong and i cant deal with it. When i see this picture it helps me relax and  see that there's a reason for all that's happening. It helps me realize that I need to be patient and have faith and hope that things will be better. When I know i need to have hope and faith this image pops into my head because they're two hands together in prayer mode ready to pray and let life go on. Sometimes it hard when your in a situation like with my parents separation to have hope and faith that things will be okay.

This image is connected with me in every way. Its what helps me go on in my life when I feel like I can't. this image means a lot to me its kind of what runs my life. It motivates me to keep going and put things that are going wrong aside and know life keeps going even when you feel down. When i see this image it brightens up my day and it reminds me when i was younger and wouldn't really know what was going on and i would always say things will be okay. Now I know that things change but there's explanations. like my mom always said "when one door closes another one opens".

The Ways We Lie

Is it possible to tell lies and still be an honest person?

I think that you can be an honest person and still tell lies if your willing to fix them. I have told lies so it wouldn't hurt people so that my feelings wouldn't be known but it killed me inside. I later had to come clean and try. I think I am an honest person but sometimes at that moment I can't necessarily say everything is fine.

Sometimes people don't mean to lie they do it in the moment but most people feel guilty and come clean. I know i do. I don't think some people mean to lie, it just happens sometimes and they end up thinking about it so much that its guilt getting them. There are many people that use lies as an advantage and its horrible because they hurt many people and sometimes when its to late they realize it. I guess better later then never right?

Being honest can mean many things. Its they way you tell the lies that can make you not honest. an honest person is someone that tries to fix his or her mistakes and doesn't try to make the lie bigger and bigger by telling more lies. A person who wants to come clean and tries to fix their lies is becoming honest, instead of  letting it go and keep it going. I'm an honest person and I have lied but I do fix it right away because I can't keep a lie. I'm sure you can tell lies but be honest, you truly can.