Knowing Our World

Author’s Note: Writing this was  not the easiest thing for me to do but I felt like I needed to let it in, and then let it out. This is a reminder of what happens in our so called, ordinary world.

Crazy, inhumane, dreadful, careless, these are just a fraction of the words that would describe our world. One thing for sure is that human beings really are interesting creatures, we steal, kill, hit, and many other things to each other. Of course there are more people who are still in their right mind, but even just one person who does these things is too much, and there are countless people who are doing these things every day. There are bad things in the world that we cannot afford to miss out on helping out.

One morning I came from school and noticed that the living room TV was on the news channel and I did not like what I saw. There was people running, screaming, people were hurt and the news reporters said that there was two bombs that went off during a marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, a proud day for Americans. I was just shocked as I watched two bombs go off on TV, where there were people cheering on the runners for one moment then everything turns into chaos in another. As time went by slowly, I watched as the number hurt keeped increasing. I looked on CNN and I found that the number hurt was at over 140 people total and only three were killed (CNN). There are bad things in the world that we cannot afford to miss out on helping out.

Now, the bombing was one of the worst thing that happened for the year, but there are more bad things, for instance there were three girls that got kidnapped ten years ago and just got found. This rescue happened because one of the girls hailed a neighbor and called 911 (The Washington Post). This completely came out of nowhere for me and I feel absolutely sorry for these poor girls. One of the young ladies was severely beaten and needs face reconstruction. She won’t have contact with her family because she was on the list as a runaway and they took her off the list, in other words they gave up on her. I don’t know what is worse, getting beaten for ten years or know that you were givin up upon your own family. I, on the other hand, would never give up looking if there wasn’t undeniable proof of my friend’s or children’s death.

I really didn’t even want to mention Human Trafficking, but I think that it is necessary since it is a very important problem in our world. As I mentioned before that the girls got kidnapped well that was an example of human trafficking. There are more people in slavery now than there ever has been in human history (ywca), which I had a hard time believing that, but I guess it would make sense with the increased population over the years.

All this and much more happens every day, every hour, every second. There is the saying that states, “Every second there is a child born.”. Which is true but another saying that is true is, “Every second somebody dies.”. No matter what the cause is it really matters that we know that these things happen and we must do everything we can to help, whether it is praying for them, or giving some money to a fund for them, for the people who have lost close ones, and who have almost lost their lives.

Bibliography:

• "3 killed, more than 140 hurt in Boston Marathon bombing – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs." This Just In - CNN.com Blogs. N.p., 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 30 May 2013. <http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/15/explosions-near-finish-of-boston-marathon/>.
• Roig-Franzia, Manuel, and Jerry Markon. "3 missing women rescued from Cleveland home; questions raised over police visits - Washington Post." Featured Articles From The Washington Post. N.p., 14 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013. <http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-07/national/39076467_1_rescue-neighbors-women>.
• "YWCA of Silicon Valley - 10 Surprising Facts About Human Trafficking." YWCA Silicon Valley. N.p., 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 May 2013. <http://ywca-sv.org/programs/HT/ten-human-trafficking-facts.php>.

Trail Of Tears Part Two

Author's Note: With this second part of my story I have tried to put more dialog in here with people talking to each other.

Part Two

The trip to the rest of our lives started with a slow and depressing walk. Some of the children were still cry but noting along with some mothers. Anusha was crying on my shoulder and it was hard for me to keep from crying along with her. I knew I had to be brave for her so that I wouldn’t make the situation even worse. Plus I had a reputation I had to keep with my family and my tribe, showing fear is something I try to stay away from, to be brave for my tribe if the day comes that I will lead my people. That day will probably never happen since I am a woman and only men can go to war and be leaders. I’m lucky enough that I get to hunt but that will soon end, I’m sure of it since we will need a lot of woman when we get to the new land to organize everything up along with getting everything situated. Adahy was used to having a good amount of game on his back so having some blankets and soft stuff actually felt good on his back I bet. Sooner or later Laila or Anusha will want to have a ride on him when their feet get tired, possibly even mother. It is weird when they ask me to ride Adahy since it is partially our families horse but they know Adahy and me have a special bond that will never break. He won’t let anyone else ride him unless I give him the “okay” sign, which is either helping the person on him, which is pretty obvious, or basically just telling him it’s okay. Just as I was saying, here goes Anusha.

“Aruna can I please ride Adahy please? I really don’t want to walk next to those creepy men.”

I completely understood what she meant, those men were dressed strangely with huge long guns. I felt both safe to be protected by those guns and also unsafe and completely uncomfortable since I’m sure those guns were used against my people, possibly one of them is the killer of my father. Either way I much rather a bow since it is better in every way. It reloads faster, easier to carry, and just looks cooler. Though I do admit that I wish I had the chance to fire the gun at least once, the white men would get a taste of their own medicine, or guns. Finally we halt for a second and I push her up upon Adahy, where I know she is now safe. If anybody tries to hurt her then I can simply send Adahy to charge off until he finds one of our sister tribes.

Dawn came by the time we have gotten deep into the forest from walking on trails that cut straight through the forest which made the trip much easier.

“Okay, it’s time to stop for the night.” The leader states.

Everybody stops and prepares to unsettle for the night. I take Anusha off Adahy and look for a nice, soft place to sleep. Mother carried Laila asleep in her arms, laid her onto a tree, pulled a blanket off of Adahy and put her to sleep. Everybody started to do the same and after about a half hour everybody was comfy and ready to fall asleep. I, on the other hand, stayed up and watched as the white men gathered around a fire not too far away from us, drinking, smoking, and I have to say that I have never smelled something that almost made me throw up, except for bad meat, but the thing that really bothered me was that these were the men that fought and won against my kin. All they were doing was laughing and getting drunk enough to stumble to the ground when trying to walk. Finally, sleep caught up with me and put me into a dreamless sleep.

I felt something sniffing me, a very soft nose and at first I thought that it was a wolf, about to eat my face when I stood straight up and took out my knife that was strapped to my side. Then I see Adahy staring at me and stepped back when I jumped up and startled her, she eyes my knife and backs away, he was always a smart horse. Wondering why he woke me up I looked around and saw that all the white men were loading up their guns. Now I was very thankful for Adahy, because they might think that we are all asleep and they are just going to execute us in our sleep, as I suspected and so did he.

“Thanks boy, I owe you a tree of apples.” I whisper loud enough just for him to hear.

Instead of killing us they start going to different families, careful not to get too close incase they stab them or something, and told them to get packing. One soldier came over to us and gave us the same instructions. We began to pack everything up when another soldier comes over to talk to my mother.

“I am afraid that we are going to have to take your horse, orders from the General that if there are any valuable horses that we have to take them.”

Hearing this made my heart skip three beats and before I knew it, I was holding onto Adahy with my life and started to yell at the soldier with great fear in my heart. The soldier was startled by the yelling coming from a little girl.

“NO, you can’t just take my horse away! He belongs to me and only me! My father left me Adahy and I refuse to give him away to the very people who killed him!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“There is nothing that I can do, your horse is too strong to just ignore and leave in the hands of a peasant.” He says with a smirk.

The very second I heard him call me a “peasant”, I lost all of my anger and before I could stop myself I kicked the man's leg so he would be level to me and was shocked by my surprising strength. I slap him across the face so hard that my hand felt a painful shock go throughout my arm and fell to the ground covering his face, while I tried to get feeling back into my hand.

“Aruna stop!! You're just going to make things worse!” My mother cries while holding my sisters. They had plain shock on their face and started to cry when they thought about what the man would do back to me.

“You little...” He trails off while he slaps me back and I land face down on the ground crying from the agonizing pain.

My family just sits there, not being able to move and neither could I. Waiting for what might come next I turn and look at the soldier who now held a gun up to Adahay’s head. Somehow I find even more strength and began to get up and start charging after the man when two other men stop me by grabbing my arms and pushing me back to the ground.

“Stubborn little brat, pull her back up so I can punish her, she needs to learn who is the boss around here.”

The soldiers get me on my knees and I look into the eyes of my mother and sisters whose eyes were filled with fear. They were also being held by soldiers to make sure that they see the punishment.

“Now, everybody watch so that the next time somebody decides to give me disrespect that the punishment will be even worse, she is lucky that I am going easy on her and that I am going to end her pain fast but I will not do the same for anyone else.” The soldier says making sure each and every one of my kin were watching and listening.

Everything started to slow down, watching the man take his gun and give me the most devilish smile, I didn’t want anyone to watch so kept all of my tears behind my eyes and gave the soldier a strong, hard stare, looking deep into his eyes, looking into his soul and saw nothing but complete anger. He took his gun, flipped it so that the handle was showing and hit me hard on the head, before I could even flinch everything turns to black and the world goes quiet.

End Of Part Two

Fitness & Health

Author's Note: This is my essay that I had to write for gym and I thought that it would be a good piece since there are some good uses of punctuation in here.

I feel very good about myself when gym is over; I try to use my very best effort in everything that we do, yet I know that there are people who really don’t like gym because they think that it is hard. Even though I agree with this, I feel physical activity really is a good thing. I don’t understand the people that hate gym class because I really do love it. Most of the time we get to play fun sports that I can never play anywhere else.

Now,I know that a reason a lot of people don’t like gym is because that it is tiring and they basically don’t like to exercise, however I believe that gym is the only reason that I am not too much over weight and the same goes for almost everybody else in school. Sure, some people do sports, but for those who don’t want to participate in a sport or can’t, they are lucky to have physical education class, otherwise we could all be overweight and lazy. I know that every time gym is over I have a really good feeling about myself because I tried. Everything is planned out and organized. We will work on endurance, strength, then speed, and we play games that go along with all of these skills. Gym isn’t all about just getting into shape because it also helps me socially. My friends and I have become closer with having to learn how to work together to successfully accomplish the task given us. For example when we play capture the kettlebell we tell each other to watch different parts of the gym or try to save each other from jail.

As I said before, a lot of people dislike gym class, not realizing that it does so much to prepare them for their future socially as well as, physically. We are more unlikely to have back problems when we practice doing sit ups because basically our bones are going to feel a lot stronger when we get older. If we didn’t exercise or do any type of stretches, then our bones and muscles would ache  and we would be very weak and unhealthy. Of course, some people do have trouble in gym because they have asthma, like I do, or are already overweight and have a much harder time. I remember I used to run like a horse, but then in fifth grade I got pneumonia and my lungs were damaged. Now, I have trouble breathing just after a short sprint or jog, but I have gotten better in the last two years. This improvement is seen in the goals we set for ourselves in class. Also, I am a little overweight  although I have lost a little and I realize it is the result of the physical activity I use in phy ed class.

I don’t know what I would do without gym. It gives me a chance to go outdoors and play sports and just basically have fun with my friends. I feel sorry for those people who hate gym and I will never understand why they feel that way. Plus it is the only class that I can forget about everything else that is happening outside of class, whether I have an essay due or a presentation due next class, in gym I release all the stress I have within the activities we do.. Sure doing the mile and the pacer isn’t all that great, but I like it because every year we get to see how much more stronger and faster we grow throughout the school year.