College Can't Slow Down a Runner

After a long and dragged out day of college spent in the laboratories of UMass Dartmouth, my sister Erin doesn't kick back and relax like most other college students would. Instead, she throws on a fresh new pair of gym clothes, ties on her sneakers, puts headphones in her ears and starts blasting her music, as she takes off down the campus road running.

Erin Markham is both a hard-worker, as well as a caring sister, who doesn't want to slow down. With a five foot eight inch height, a light complexion from our dad, straight brown hair that reaches her shoulders, and a happy-go-lucky attitude, Erin is a strong-willed person who will do whatever it takes to create a balanced lifestyle that makes herself as well as those around her happy.

Over the past couple of years since starting college at UMass Dartmouth, Erin has been hard at work with her Medical Science major. She found the major interesting, at the expense of needing to dedicate much of time towards her schoolwork, with her freshman year alone needing to take eight classes in order to stay on a four-year schedule. Needing a way to get away from her schoolwork and relax herself, she picked up on running thanks to our mom, who has been running in her free time and for races over the past five years. Soon afterwards began swimming as well as cycling over at the YMCA down the street when she comes home to visit for the weekends. When I asked my neighbor, Sean, about Erin's training, her stated how he's "surprised about her drive to do so much, especially with her college workload".

This past summer, August 24th, Erin decided to try and take on a triathlon, which was a thirteen-mile race focused on running, swimming, and cycling, all of which she'd been working on over the past couple of years. When I asked Erin why she wanted to do a triathlon, she said she "wanted to try something many people could only dream of doing." From her triathlon, she placed second in her age group, which was nineteen to twenty-three years old. When I saw her cross the finish line at the end of the race, I could see how ecstatic she was from what she had just accomplished.

I asked Erin if she would do another triathlon in the future. "I'm ready to do another one next year.", she said. "Maybe you can do it with me next time too!"

The Passing

The year is 2006, a week after Thanksgiving, and my sister and I were getting off the school bus at our house after yet another long, forgettable day of school. It was especially cold that day, cutting through our sweatshirts we were wearing at the time. As we walked off the bus, we noticed our mom on the front steps of the porch, her cheeks reddened from the cold, as if she were waiting for us for a long time outside.

My sister and I ran up to mom, and gave her a big hug, and she hugged us back hard. We didn't know what was going on at the time, but we were happy to see her, as she normally came home after dark. I looked up at my mom, and she gave us a weak smile. Her mascara had been running down her face, and I noticed that she wasn't even wearing a jacket, despite the cold.

"Is something wrong?" my sister asked. Being older than me by a couple of years, she tended to catch on to things easier and quicker than me, but I was still curious about what was going on.


My mom, letting go of us from the hug, said "Do you recall how Grandpa was really sick on Thanksgiving?". I remembered it all too well. My Grandpa was bedridden for Thanksgiving, so he couldn't enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with us over at my grandparent's house. Through the walls, I could hear him coughing up a storm. I knew he was sick at the time, but never asked about how sick he actually was. I didn't know it at the time, but my Grandpa had been suffering from both Lung Cancer and Liver Cancer over the past couple of months.

My sister seemed to understand at the time, and walked inside the house, leaving me and my mom outside. Somehow, the weather seemed to be even colder than before.

My mom whispered in my ear, as if she was afraid the wind would take her words from me, "Your Grandfather died this morning."

I heard all I needed to hear, and ran inside the house, and into my room, slamming the door behind me and burying my face in my pillow for the tears that would soon follow. I never experienced a death in my family, and so I was left alone my both my sister and my mom to do one thing. To cry.

NESA Scholarship Prompt

Scholarship: National Eagle Scout Association Academic Scholarship
Prompt: Describe what it means to be an Eagle Scout.




To be an Eagle Scout isn't an award to be shelved a week later, nor is being an Eagle Scout a way to get an easy pass in life through respect from others. Being an Eagle Scout is being a leader, for everything accomplished over the years of scouting to be looked upon by upcoming scouts, who also with to reach their Eagle Rank.

Since I was in Elementary School, I’ve been a scout, and have learned many techniques over the years, ranging from how to camp properly, to properly learning how to cook. While all of this was fun, it never showed me what was needed in order to become a leader. It wasn’t until this past year that I’ve learned how to become a proper leader, which was done through my Eagle Scout Project, a service project that would benefit the schools, religious facilities, or the community. With my project based around a citywide food drive to benefit the “Hebron Food Pantry for Working-class Citizens” of Attleboro, I had to learn what it took to become a leader in order to fulfill my Eagle Scout Project.

With my project, there were many aspects where being a leader was necessary, including organizing the initial project by going to different locations and other people to find out how to go about the project, fundraising the project in order to get all of the supplies necessary, and create a schedule and plan for the volunteers and scouts to follow by and be kept safe. From all of this, I’ve learned to create my Eagle Scout project, and have it based around different parts of Attleboro each week, I’ve learned how to properly create an organized fundraiser in order to pay for the supplies necessary, and I’ve learned to create a schedule that would keep all of the volunteers and scouts safe while helping fulfill my project.

In the end, I’ve successfully completed my project over the span of five weeks, and am now officially an Eagle Scout. However, I found that I would have never been able to complete my Project had I not learned how to become a leader. Through becoming a leader, I was able to learn what was necessary in order to succeed with my project, and was able to show not just myself, but other scouts within my troop what is needed in order to become a leader. It’s through this experience that makes me an Eagle Scout.

My Rhetorical Analysis on "Defending Jacob"

In “Defending Jacob”, William Landay talks about the story of Andrew Barber, and how his world began to fall apart after the murder of a young boy, with his son to be accused of. Landay’s narrative follows the style of a man who displays conflicting viewpoints on the world, shown through pity and spite, on characters and events that happen throughout the story.

 

When you begin reading of “Defending Jacob”, you expect the story to be focused around this character named Jacob and his point of view, as the opening of this literacy narrative begins in a Police Interview setting. However, you find out in the next line that the perspective of the story is actually focused around Jacob’s father, Andrew.

From here, we begin to see Andrew describe Mr. Logidudice, the man interviewing him. Even though we had only just met this character, it’s clear from the amount of backstory following this shows how Andrew has known Mr. Logidudice from quite some time. With the way in which Andrew describes Mr. Logidudice, however, shows how Andrew shows pity for Mr. Logidudice, as Andrew describes how Mr. Logidudice has messed up over the years. This is mostly seen through lines such as “His reputation was already damaged beyond repair, and his career along with it.”, being followed up later on in the same paragraph with “But to me, Logidudice was okay. He was just innocent.” It’s through this that we can see of how Andrew is going through different conflicting opinions on even just one character, displaying both spite for how Mr. Logidudice has messed up only to follow up with how he cared about him as well.

Later on in the narrative, we begin to unfold in this interview with Mr. Logidudice, asking more questions of the case. It is here, however, that we get another case of Andrew conflicting among his own thoughts. Andrew states of how “‘I believe in the system, same as you, same as everyone else‘”, but then immediately follows up with “I do not believe in a system, at least I do not think it is especially good at finding the truth.” This again displays another confliction with Andrew, as he talks about how he believes in the court system similarly to Mr. Logidudice and everyone else, however then immediately flips over and states of how he doesn’t believe in a system, saying how it’s not good as finding the truth.

From these, it can be seen how William Landay’s narrative follows a conflicting style of writing for our main protagonist.