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This is a continuation of my journal from my 2001-2002 school year.  Please read the previous posts to give this entry context.  

Burp

It’s the day after Thanksgiving.  My husband and I usually spend the holiday as just the two of us.  We hike in Fall Creek amongst the redwoods and then cook our turkey on the Weber.  This year the waves were fifteen to twenty feet tall and we decided to walk along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Since my father-in-law is now out here in a rest home, we had him join us for our Thanksgiving dinner—turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie with creme fraiche.

I’ve been reading some of the autobiographical essays during the break. (For everyone who thinks teachers have cushy schedules, the norm, for me, is to read papers in the evening, on the weekend, and during vacations.  My average workweek is sixty hours.) 

Elizabeth’s Essay 

My First Kiss

Most people in life have had a first kiss.  At around the age of five or six, I had my first kiss.  It is pretty funny that a kindergarten girl and a boy would kiss at such a young age.  For both Omar, the boy who kissed me, and me, it was a joke.

One day at school everyone was talking about how we had seen our parents kiss many times before.  It came to us all that we were very curious to know how it felt to kiss or get kissed.  As the day went by we were all trying to set up a girl and a boy to kiss.

While everyone was busy playing hide and seek, house, painting, and feeding the pets, the news came to me that me classmate Omar liked me.  I was shocked.  I liked the feeling of the shock.  It felt as if my heart was jumping, racing, and screaming, “Omar, I like you too!”  The day was half way done, and everyone was giving up on the set up.

We formed groups later that day.  I was in the journal writing group, where my friends and I were talking about who we thought was cute.  My friend Johanna said, “I like Jesus he is really handsome.”

Both my friends Cindy and Evelyn said, “We think that Omar is cute, but he is already Elizabeth’s.”  Everything started to get really interesting.

Johanna asked, “Do you like Omar?”

“Why?” I answered.

“Well, he likes you and his is really cute.”

There was a feeling I had that something was going to happen, something that had been planned behind my back.  Still, having no regrets of what I was going to say, I said, “Yes, I do.”  All of a sudden we heard a teacher call out group change.  The only thought that was in my head was that Omas was going to be in my next group.  Yes!

In the mini project group was Cindy, Johanna, Jesus, David, my friends, Omar, the boy who liked me, and me.  Omar sat next to me, which made me nervous.

Our teacher said, “Today we are going to make macaroni necklaces.  I will give you all the materials and show you how to make them.  Do not worry I will start the necklaces for all of you.”

As the teacher gave materials to each of us and kept explaining the way to make the necklaces, Omar started to get closer and closer to me.  I turned to him, and he kissed my lips.  The kiss felt warm, sweet, wet, and soft.  Just three seconds, but it felt like eternity.  As soon as the kiss was over I told the teacher, “Teacher, Omar kissed me.”  Omar’s face turned red and he covered his face with shame.

“He likes you,” the teacher said laughing.  “A lot!”

Her grey eyes looked at me.  They looked like they were saying to me to kiss him back.  So I did.  Everyone saw and giggled.

The kiss was once again amazingly gentle and soft.  It was a quick, but sincere kiss of little love.  We both turned red, but I thought it was all worth it.  From then on we remembered that kiss, though as we grew up we took it as a joke.

My first kiss made a difference on my life and Omar’s.  When I think about that kiss I realize that Omar was affected by it.  It made him a flirt.  It has made me a dreamer.  I daydream a lot when I think about the guys I like or my future.  Sometimes I have the sensation that I want to kiss any guy that I like or that likes me.  I would like to kiss my crush, but I do not.  To be honest I have kissed only three guys in my life, including Omar.  Not so long ago a guy kissed me, but that is another story.  An unforgettable kiss it was, and still is.

 

Sheridan’s Essay

9-11

We are very lucky to live in a free nation.  People don’t realize how fortunate they are to live in America.  I think we take advantage of this privilege and only care about ourselves.  We are always worried about how we look or feel, which is very important, but we also need to be kinder to our fellow human beings, or a least recognize that they are out there.  On September eleventh I experienced this insensitivity first hand.

I was getting dressed for school on that Tuesday morning when the phone rang.  It didn’t seem out of the ordinary until I found out what the call was about.

“Hello,” my mom said answering the phone.  She was quiet for a moment while my aunt on the other line was telling her something that would change our nation.  “Oh my God!  What channel?”  She quickly clicked off the phone, ran into the living room, and turned on the television.

My sister and I ran from our bedrooms into the living room to see what all the uproar was about.  I had never seen my mom so shocked.

“We have just gotten word that the second of the Twin Towers has also been hit by another plane,” reported the man on CNN.

My mom was speechless and almost in tears.  I was thinking, “What are the Twin Towers?”

A half an hour later, still utterly shocked, my mom, sister, and I were leaving for school.  On an average day we would have talked during the drive to school, but this time the car was silent.  This was the worst terrorist attack ever to hit America.  We all had so many thoughts in our minds we couldn’t pay attention to anything else.

When I entered my first period, my classmates were completely hushed just like the car ride to school.  Everyone was at their desks, captivated by the woman on the television telling them the latest news.  We were appalled.  Yesterday, if you asked an average teenager what the World Trade Centers were, or were for, that average teenager probably wouldn’t have known.

Throughout the day and the rest of the week we watched the news anytime possible.  It seemed to me that Americans were uniting.  The sad part about this is that it took something as horrible as this for our nation’s people to come together.  We should have been more sensitive to the fact that people in the rest of the world don’t have as many rights as we do.  I’m not saying that who ever did this had a good reason to do this to us because there isn’t.  I’m saying if everyone in the world could be a little less selfish and a little more aware this probably wouldn’t have happened.  Just because person is bad it doesn’t mean their whole race or country is also bad.

I hope that some day more and more people will “count their lucky stars,” and realize how great their lives really are.  Sometimes it might seem like you have it really bad, but then you need to compare you life to everyone else’s in the world.  You will realize that you are actually extremely lucky to live in America.  We need to savor the privileges that we do have.