My perfectly real and plausible college application

       Who am I? A difficult question, I generate mountain ranges, spawn Mount Everest every Friday and drink the water of the Earth to create the Sahara desert the following Tuesday. Swiftly my hand passes over the people as I soar through the air beyond the speed of light. Not only can I travel at the speed of light but stop in a jiffy to save an old woman's cat from the tree on Elm Street. Evil cowers as I'm the Mr. Clean and they're the germs because I kill 99% of them only to let the other 1% pretend to die. In the morning I prepare my 10000 person banquet. In the afternoon I climb to the moon, and in the time of night I return to read goodnight stories to all the children, telepathically.
       I am a master of all; I created language when I was three and then a person for each. I am the control room, the energy, the lab, the lavatory, and the everything of the world. Created have I, the French, the British, the Portuguese, and the Aliens.
        Modern science is my creation; Ancient Science is my creation; Every thought in between is my thought that I gave to my people and they are my creation. Music creates me, and I create music. What Am I? I am the river Nile in the Mediterranean, the Pacific Ocean In the Atlantic, and the Moon inside the sun. I am the Inventor and Earth is my workshop. I am God.
      Science is arisen from the grand studies in the palace of my mind. Air is blown from my mouth as a tornado of otherworldly power. Earth creates itself below my feet from the dark energy in the universe. Fire from my heart immolates the darkness and evil throughout the galaxies, and Water cascades from my bloodstreams into the vast regions of space. I now wish to see what my pupils have discovered of the great plan. I wish to see what they have to teach. I wish to attend one of their "Colleges".

Matthew Mackay

Time is failing

Today, I stand in the crowd sliding myself away from the others that brush beside me, shoving me back and forth. Thoughtlessly now I admire the clock and its Tick Tock as the hand wavers above the dreaded 1. Unpreparedly and full of myself I wander into the crowd letting my hand drag beside my tweed jacket as it scratches my hands with its hard cotton strands. Then I listen, but all I can scramble to comprehend is the Principals Voice over the P.A. bellowing the words "Good Luck Students" and I begin to think "I sure need it, thanks..." only to continue my trek across the mountains. I enter the cave that is the dark grey box that is called the gym and I approach the secluded desk that presents itself with my own name. It flaunts me with it's perfect white radiance and artistic patters of black text cascaded over the eight pages.

Glued to my seat, I reach my hand out to grab the pencil that protrudes from the desk. As I jar the pencil free from its eternal resting place, the pencil drifts towards the paper. Questionably I stare at the name of the exam to think if I could actually pass, by fluke, not by knowing anything. The title is as follows, "AP Calculus 12" and immediatly knew my time has failed me and more importantly, I have failed. After a while, near the time when I may be able to leave this room, I begin to write down answers, "A, C, D, E, B, A, B, A, A,..." until I had at least one answer marked down for each question in the entirety of the exam. I hear a Click, tick, tick, tick, BEEEEP! and many of the students let their pencils down but I slam my pencil down. Swiftly I tread towards my belongings and wander through the many stunned looks of the most intelligent students in my school in the sight of my completion of the AP Calculus exam. Several weeks later I walk back into the musty hallways of the school as I smell the faint scent of ink from the printer room stare at the coffee stains on the door near the staff room dreading the results of my exam. I force my step on the path towards the math room and visualize the text on the door searching for my name. I find it peer right and see 69%. I passed. Ecstatic, and with a sudden urge to rip my shirt off and run around the school like a madman, I stand and cry only to have my slightly bald haired teacher congradulate my "acheivement". Though I may not be able to solve a third degree equation or do any rocket science, at least I passed with a 69% and will always be able to tells stories from my time in the cave, brawling with the white bear patterned with text awaiting my response to its many questions.

Performance poetry summarization

Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior

     "Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior" by Taylor Mali describes several of this seventh-grade history class' assignments then all the kids come to class one day and "not one single boy in [the] class had hair." All the kids come to class, knowing their friend who had cancer was there, their actions of laughter, solidarity, and uniform lack of hair is enough to almost make a grown man cry. "It's a beautiful sight" to see all those kids standing in a circle "outside the synagogue" to commemorate their many projects and to burn their miniature viking ship. The main idea of this poem is that no matter who one may be, and what one believes in, bad things can always happen. "You must all work together. Like warriors" is an amazing example of a simile as is compares how the kids need to learn how to work together with the spirit and will of a warrior otherwise they will fall. The best of this poem is how serious the children are when they finally have to face the fact that they will see their friend with cancer and then when they are at the synagogue to see their friend for the final time. One of the key facts to life is that one must keep walking the path of life, no matter what they may trip on, or have to deal with through the years.

Tomatoes

     Shane Koyczan's poem "Tomatoes" compared the memory of the first girl he kissed to tomatoes and that he wanted to live with her near the black with her to make their love last forever. He uses several memories to describe how much he loved this girl. These memories ranged from his "grade 4 ... gym teacher [that] gave me the nick name half-ton" to his experiences when he wrote a note to a girl saying how much he loved her and that "the teacher ... intercepted and read [the note] to the class." That's when Shane realised that it is just a memory, but everyone needs to have memories to remember who they truly are. Realistically, the world's inhabitants conform to each other to fit in but this poem teaches people that they shouldn't "risk losing the detail" of the memories they have, "just [to] make the story fit" and should be savouring the great memories that are had since they are unique and could never be recreated. One of my favourite parts of the poem is the extended metaphor between love and gravity. Gravity is a perfect comparison since Shane himself knew that a black hole "would be the perfect place to love someone" but later on this is contrasted by a quote by Einstein, "Gravity won't be held responsible for people falling in love." Though the most intriguing part of the poem is how relatable it is in every person's life. Memories are to be savoured, not simply lived, and people should learn to accept who they are no matter the thoughts of others.

Paper People

     "Paper people" by Harry Baker contrasted the enjoyment in the world to its corruption and inner problems using a paper world. As a world, people were just paper people living below "paper politicians with their paper-thin policies," and people that lived with a "population [of] people's problems".This poem also described the greed in society in a translucent view, showing the opinions of many different people. One of the points of view was His "aunt [who put] on plays for prisoners" just for the fact that anyone could have been forgiven and to realise some "people ... go out of their way to make your life better" without searching for a reward but personal gratitude. Now in a world that can seem as thin as paper this may not seem like a big deal but it has happened, just think of time of when someone went out of their way and know that "in the end it all comes down to people." Harry also used an incredibly interesting form of alliteration and parallel structure. At the beginning of the poem he added a word to the start of a sentence and then added another in front of that same line on the next line to form a really interesting image in the reader's minds. A piece of magnificent nature is how I described this piece of writing since it really captured how different people can be and that one should accept everyone for who they are but allow them to change. Though the coolest parts of this poem were the interesting comparisons between different actions performed in reality to how much they would affect an illusive "paper world".

Matthew Mackay

Fishing for homework

       As I shuffled into the classroom, I knew that Mr. Van Camp would never believe me. I looked at my scuffed shoes and mumbled, " My homework is not done, Sir. I do have a good excuse though."

       " This is not the first time your homework has not been completed. Perhaps," Mr. Van Camp suggested, "it's time to speak with your parents."

       "Please, you have no idea what will happen to me if you phone my home," I moaned. It looked as if he was going to fall for my story.

      "Well, let's hear your excuse. It better be good."
     
      "Yesterday, at 6 o'clock p.m. I was out fishing with my father just before the sunlight withered into darkness. I awaited the response of the bobber to splash into the water," I whisper, "patiently."

      Mr. Van Camp inquires, "Why were you fishing instead of doing your homework?"

     "I was doing my homework while my time passed upon my canoe."

     "So, what happened to your homework then?" mentions Mr. Van Camp.

     I whisper, "I had felt a swift tug on the rod and I began to pull and the canoe began it's slow descent into the blue water."

     "You know that it's the middle of Winter right?"
   
     "Well, I enjoy the danger," I remark, "of the chilled waters and the taste of their fish that inhabit the darkness below the film of ice. As the canoe tipped and only the wooden peak protruded from the water, I scrambled to stay above the water and to find my homework."

     "A fish for dinner, and a piece of paper for myself is all we need otherwise I am the danger," whispered Mr. Van Camp.

    

"Bluffing" mother nature

Lying in bed, passing time, within the "eggshell white" corridors, Liam is a "mummified Egyptian" living through the pain after a bear's claw underneath the "bandages [winding] around his scalp." Deceivingly, he pours another lie off the tip of his tongue to reassure Gabriella as "[he] meant [for] the bear to come after [him] instead of" her. In the short story Bluffing by Gail Helgason, Liam and his girlfriend are trekking up in the wilderness near a lake when they encounter a grizzly bear. Liam begins to "run away" to divert the bear's attention, to save her. Now, he is "propped up in bed." He is a liar; Swiftly diverting others, only to tell the the other hikers they "came across an elk carcass... [and] some grizzly" was around the lake. Distastefully, he plans to leave for "Yosemite [or] New Mexico" to spend his time along the rocky cliffs, and thousands of miles away from his girlfriend. Beyond the "steel edge" in his voice his honestly is fake as he is a simple man "guiding American and German tourists up... in the Rockies" who won't "have his photo in glossy magazines." Lying in bed once again, "the doctor sweeps into the room" when the "nurse begins to snip away" the bandages which will cut away the deception he is living with.

Little old Clarisse

An old leather bag, dressed like a hag, she is horrific to sight. Wafting the pale white smoke of her cigarette towards the center of the room, she only manages to sit crooked in her old wooden rocking chair. Horrified, pale, revolted are all feelings you may feel if you are in her immediate proximity. You smell smoke and a faint scent of old people’s perfume. She is putrid. Slowly withering away, eventually to dust, her youth is gone. But in a sense her form is almost admirable. Not by looks but rather in the experiences lived by her. She wears her pale rose colored dress that barely stretches to the floor that she wore many years ago. It is the memory of dancing with her husband in that dress. It's the only memory she can hold. She is a cup with a hole in the bottom, unable to retain any of her life's memories. Her mind is like a broken record, broken beyond repair and will live each day the same as the last. When her ancient hands don't hold a cigarette they move in a uniform pattern tying the knots between two strings as she knits a sweater. A sweater for her grandson is what she is creating. For a person from the portrait that protrudes from the wall in front of her. She lives and hopes. She wants to see her family on her last days before they all tick away like the hands on her grandfather clock.