The Black Cruz

Associate an object or an action with someone in real life. Does someone you know have a cherished possession or a unique ritual? Describe it. Use that object or ritual to begin a character sketch about that person.

My brother's job is to drive around to different hospitals selling medical equipment to doctors. If this sounds familiar it's because it's the same job that Will Smith had at the beginning of The Pursuit of Happyness. That being said his entire life has become confined to a singular metal death trap that he adores. Anytime I get in he's constantly reminding me not to slam the door, even when I close it gently. It's a black chevy cruz with satalite radio. He listens to NPR every day and regurgitates information to me as if he's learned something new. It would be a nice car to own if it weren't filled to the brim with hip and leg braces along with stacks of medical forms. He likes to fool himself into thinking his life is in order because he keeps his apartment immaculately clean; however, the place where he spends most of his life these days is a mess.

Sorry Jim. I love you man, but I know this isn't what you want to do your whole life. Even if it pays well.

Deathbed

9/25/2012
You’re very old. You’re on your deathbed. (Sorry.) Family and friends gather around you. What do you tell them about life? What advice about living do you offer them? Spill a few pearls of wisdom from your experience.

Don't waste your time holding your self back with beliefs and ideologies. Compared to amount of time the Earth has been here, your life is but a fraction of a second. One day you're going to be lying on your death bed wondering what your life has meant; if you've managed to make an inkling of an impact on anyone else's life or have done anything to outlive the life you've built for yourself, and you may hate yourself for coming to the wrong conclusion. There are billions of people in this world, struggling to figure out the life they've been given by their mothers and fathers. Your job is to figure out what makes your life worth living. Whether that be money, fame, love, art, work, or pleasure. Just find a way to be happy while making money. If you happen to come across someone who's different than the rest, someone who challenges you, and makes chasing them seem more worthwhile than the path you've chosen; my advice is to not let them out of your lives. However, if your path leads you astray from them, my advice is to focus on your work until you can live comfortably, your love life will follow suite. The person you think you're meant to be with may not be the one at all.
I'm not going to claim I know all the secrets to life. I will say that making mistakes is crucial to knowing how to shape your life. I will also say that, "One day, your life will flash before your eyes, just make sure it's worth watching." -Chuck Palahniuk

Nirvana Was Not Just A Band

9/20/2012
Write about your vision of the afterlife, if you believe in one. If you don’t believe in one, write about what happens after we die or, if you prefer, write about your vision of what the afterlife should be.

In a movie, the main character will always go through a transformation of some kind. Usually it will become the polar opposite of the character he was when the story began. That's why we come to care about the character. We see him go through "the hero's journey."

My belief is that life is an ongoing lesson. If we go through life unable to learn the lesson we're supposed to, we will be reborn as someone else in different circumstances to experience this lesson again. Or examine this lesson from another perspective.

Those of us who live happily, learn from their mistakes, and impact the people or the world around us won't have to be reborn again. As the Hinduists would say, they'll reach the highest caste system and be met with Nirvana.

King Sisy

9/18/2012
Retell a myth or a fairy tale, changing what happens or exploring characters more deeply than in the original. For example, GRENDEL is the story of the monster in BEOWULF and WICKED is a story about the Wicked Witch of the West. Reverse the myth or tale and try to create an anti-hero.


Sisy had always thought of himself as a clever boy. His father had given this name because he thought it would give his son character. For some reason, his father had always resented his son. He claimed tought love would make him grow to be a man.

One day, his father told him to begin carrying stones from a quarry over to their house. He never gave him the real reason as to why he wanted the stones, he only told him that it would make him become a man.

Sisy did as his father said, and began carrying the stones, one by one, over to a pile of stones by their house. He worked day and night, but the stones in the quarry never seemed to grow any less. Sisy continued to follow his father's orders to the point that he hadn't noticed that his father had passed away. One day the news came to Sisy, and he contemplated quitting his work. But he figured it was what his father would have wanted. So he continued.

He thought he might be able to build a pile of rocks so high that one day he would be able to reunite with his father in heaven. He continued his work tirelessly until he eventually died of old age.

In heaven, he found that his father was nowhere to be found. His task was set until the day he died, but even then, his work had gone unrewarded. Because Sisy had spent his entire life trying to gain the respect of his father, he missed experiencing his own life of happiness.

Moral of the story: don't waste your life away chasing the respect of another person. Even if they are the people who raised you.

Hometown

9/13/2012
Write about your hometown - where your family lives now. Write about what you like best - the landmarks, the best restaurants, the recreational activities.

My hatred for Williamsport has been brewing since the day I moved here. In all the other places I've lived in my life, I've never experienced the kind of segregation that I've seen here for the majority of my life.

Before the third grade, I was never picked on for being asian. Everyone saw everyone as being the same kind of person. If there was any hatred towards another person, it was because of something they said, did, or what someone had said about them. The onslaught of remarks never ceased, even up to my highschool graduation.

Nevertheless, Williamsport is a beautiful place. Every year we're put on the map by the Little League World Series. It's about the only thing that other people around the world can identify with. However, if you've spent enough time in this place, like I have, you will eventually find the local hotspots that are fun to hang out with your friends at.

There are places along creeks with rope swings, places you can jump off of bridges into somewhat deep water, and lookout spots on top of hills where you can take a romantic date (i.e. squirrel run in South Williamsport). We've also got a great local area in the heart of Williamsport where people can shop in small businesses or go to hole-in-the-wall coffee shops. All over the area, places continue to be added to the downtown area and the mall: Panera Bread, Starbucks, The Cinema Center, Target, and Michael's. Sometimes I'll leave for a period of one or two years and find my hometown totally unrecognizable.

It may be filled with resentful people, but Williamsport continues to grow into pleasant hometown with everything anyone would possibly need to live a happy life with the people they love.

Fuck that was a corny way to end :P

9/11/2001

In elementary school, I was one of three kids selected to be in a higher math class than everyone else. In fourth grade, eventually the other two kids had to drop back down to the fourth grade class. I was the only one left.

In fifth grade, I had to attend sixth grade classes at Lycoming Vally Middle School. A bus driver had to employed to drive me back to elementary school. It didn't really seem economical to me, but it wasn't my place to question the school's budget.

When I first realized there was something wrong, I was walking through the hallways of Hepburn Elementary with my backpack wheeling on the ground behind me. The sound of the wheels echoing through the halls seemed to be louder than usual. I passed by Mr. Guild, my old math teacher from fourth grade. There was no one in his room, so that meant he was watching the news and drinking coffee by his desk. But something was different. He was standing three feet away from the screen today. It looked like something you would only see in the movies. Only it was happening in the news.

There's not much I can remember from that day. Just the sight of two airplanes disappearing into a skyscraper, the sound of the announcer's voice, and the plume of dust that engulfed New York City. I just remember that the day a girl named Katie was struck and killed on impact by a car was more devastating to those kids than saddest day in U.S. history.

Because of this, however, I can't help but remember the most chilling quote that's always stuck with me by a man named Joseph Stalin.

"One death is a tragedy, A million deaths is a statistic."

Until that day, I didn't even know what the World Trade Center was. I didn't even know the U.S. government was in the middle of a quarrel with these people. Hell I didn't even know who these people were or why they would do such a thing. On 9/11/2001, we were just kids. We couldn't possibly comprehend the complexity of what was happening that day. But we would as time moved on. Because that was the day we were forced to accept the reality of the real world. Life wasn't always going to be worrying about next week's spelling test. Real life was the tragedy we were forced to watch on that TV screen.

The Stick Game

Recount a somewhat serious anecdote – a real or a fictional one—in the form of a joke. Use the rhythms and the voice you use when telling a joke, such as premise, setup and punch line.


Back when I used to live in Virginia, my brother and I would often invent our own games to entertain ourselves through the long summer days when playing video games was considered a shameful activity in the midst of such beautiful afternoons. I remember these games to be sporadic manifestations of our imaginations combined with our battle to overcome the monotony of childhood life. Often, they would come to fruition out of our usual competitive nature with one another; even though most of the games we invented never seemed to have any actual goals in the first place. Our parents were always against us seeing any ‘R’ rated movies growing up, however, violent action movies were never a problem. This was also before the era of violent video games, so we had to use our imaginations to fuel our need for an aggressive output. That being said, this particular game we invented seemed to be the one to end them all. The destruction of our youth.

I can’t exactly remember what this game was called, although I do recall what it consisted of. I imagine it arose from the type of dispute we always had over ‘who got who, first’ every time we shot at each other with our pointed fingers. That was how ‘The Shooting Game’ came to be called ‘The Stick Game.’ I’m sure you can figure out where this is going, and it pains me to think that we didn’t at the time. If you’ve ever heard your parents tell you not to do something because there was a chance someone could get their eye poked out, this was one of those situations. Nevertheless, the game consisted of throwing sticks at each other while hiding behind two adjacent trees. The object was to try and dodge the other player’s stick while trying to hit your opponent at the same time. Let’s just say my brother won after I dove out from behind my tree and connected my left eye to his stick.
As soon as this happened, I ran inside and cried to my mother like a little girl. I was then rushed to an eye doctor to see if there had been any real damage to my retina. I could only imagine the hell my brother was going through at home with my crazy father, despite the game being his idea in the first place. According to the doctor, my vision appeared to be fine, which made me wonder why I was forced to wear an eye patch over my face for the next two weeks. Although I knew how ridiculous it made me look, I kind of liked looking like an Asian pirate baby. I suppose it made me feel like a man who now had a cool battle scar and a good story to tell his friends at the lunch table. After I came back, however, my dad pulled my brother outside by his sleeve as I walked into the house. My brother began crying after he saw the patch on my eye.

“Look at him!” he cried, “Look at what you did to your brother!” It was then that I felt something strange come over me that I had never felt before. At the time, I couldn’t exactly describe it. It wasn’t sadness or empathy. And it wasn’t even the sight of my brother breaking down over such an unforeseeable accident. It was my father. It was the first time I had actually seen him give a shit about my general well being. I mean, I knew he was doing this to teach my brother a lesson, but it was over something that he’d done to me. Something that might’ve actually caused me permanent damage for the rest of my life. It was then that I knew why I started to cry in that moment. My father might act like he hates me sometimes, but there was something in him that caused him pain at the sight of me actually getting hurt. What was this feeling? And why had I never seen it before?