Our
Memories
Photo by GarinTable of Contents
Balance..........................#3
London..........................#4
Culture..........................#5
Tick Tock..........................#6
1:59:59..........................#7
Ancestors..........................#8
Garin’s Author Statement……………#9
Sena’s Author Statement……………#10
Nate’s Author Statement……………#11
Photo by GarinBalance
I don’t know how to juggle. I look at school assignments and homework as juggling balls. The more balls you have juggle, the more difficult it is to do. The less balls you have to juggle, the easier it is. I feel like I always have at least one assignment or big project from each class on my “to do list”, like I am juggling 6 balls all at once. I’m overwhelmed just thinking about it. Almost all are due within a two day span, at least I think. Deciding which task to take on head first, first. I have chosen to do the hardest assignment first. Reading. Now I know reading may come easy for some people, but those “some people” do not include me. Whenever I think of reading, I think of sleeping. In my head, I thought this would be the best option as it will force my brain to comprehend different things. Instead of challenging myself to read the short story properly and thoroughly it challenged me to keep my heavy eyelids up. These eyelids usually feel like lifting a feather but it was different this time. It felt as if I was trying to keep two Coca Cola semi trucks up, out of my eyes. Struggling to lift them, I decided to splash ice cold water on my face to wake me up. To startle, shock or surprise my body into a state of being alert. This method to keep me awake had worked. I had felt the feathers come back to rest on my eyelids and as I read the words, lines and paragraphs I was no longer challenging myself. I was enjoying myself.
Photo by Nate
London
When I was in London I attended a British school, and I want to talk about how I spend my day at school. When I went to school in the morning I would always go to the playground to play soccer with my friends. We simulated our soccer game as if we were playing in the premier league championship. When the bell rang we ran as fast to our classroom as we were chased by a scary clown. When school began we took our classes and then when the gold bell rang our bodies made a sound as Shrek was grunting because he was hungry. We headed to our cafeteria and ate the British traditional food, the fish and chips. The crunchy potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside. After we ate our food we would go back to class to finish school. When we end school we would line up in the playground as if we were stormtroopers. We headed to our field to practice rugby for the upcoming season. We were drenched with sweat and all of the energy we got from fish and chips was squeezed out so we went straight home to take a hot and cozy shower to prepare for dinner. After we ate dinner we went to bed and took our long-lasting sleep.
Photo by Garin
Culture
When my grandparents first moved in around a year and a half ago, I used to feel very out of place when my stepmom would speak to them in rapid fire Chinese around the house. I found myself constantly wondering who and what they were talking about. The language can sound like angry knives being thrown back and forth, and it always amazed me how fast and choppy the speaking could sound, while the writing looks like a thought out and detailed art piece. My step-moms' parents were also extremely proud to be Chinese, they would decorate the house with Chinese characters and banners, especially around the new year. I tried my hardest to learn about and integrate their culture into my everyday life, but the drastic differences between our customs made it so even the smallest issue was a big deal. I remember hesitating to invite my friends over because I was scared that they would dislike or be grossed out by the Chinese culture that my grandparents brought into our small-town Kentucky home. For example, my grandpa could be preparing a still feathery, but dead chicken with a massive chef's knife, right in the middle of the kitchen, or grinding up some pork to make homemade sausages. Either way, I dreaded inviting people over for sleepovers or birthdays because at that point in time, I was also somewhat grossed out and hesitant to accept Chinese culture.
Another example, in Chinese culture, it is deemed disrespectful if you don't bow to or respectfully acknowledge the oldest male member of the family whenever you see him. My dad and I had no knowledge of this custom, so we simply waved or said hello whenever our paths crossed. My grandpa took some offense to this and required some intervention. I remember being extremely confused when I was told I was disrespecting my elders multiple times a day. The last major difference was the food. Chinese people eat all kinds of "normal” food: pork, beef, chicken, and rice, but they also eat roasted fish, stinky tofu, and chicken feet. Due to the vast differences in our cultures, I decided to solve one of our main issues, communicating through the language barrier. So when I came to Punahou, I decided to take my first ever Chinese class. The homework was rough and I had a hard time learning the language at first. I remember stumbling through basic sentences such as "What is your name" and "nice to meet you". I also remember my fear of Chinese characters, so much more different and complex than English words and letters. The only reason I still wanted to take the class was because every time I came home from school, my grandparents were there asking what I learned. Our relationship drastically improved despite the very limited Chinese that I know. Even though I still struggle every day to learn the correct tones and pronunciation, the stroke order for each respective character, and the very different grammar from English. The learning of the language has had an extremely positive effect on my home life, and I still enjoy the language and how it has brought me closer to my grandparents.
Photo by GarinTick…. Tock…
Photo by Sena
I am sitting here, on a bench, writing this vignette thirty minutes before it's due. As I am writing, my friends are talking and chewing; they are lucky enough to be carefree and nonchalant. I, on the other hand, procrastinated writing this and waited until the very last possible moment. I currently have twenty-six minutes left to finish this 500 word vignette. I stress and overthink while my fingers glide over the keys like an anxious pianist. I write these words while my friends scroll, laugh, and talk. I wish I had written this earlier, that way I could enjoy my lunch. I have a mere twenty four minutes left and have written only one hundred and nineteen words. My palms are sweaty and my stomach sinks when I think about sharing a half-finished vignette. I must finish this on time. I only have twenty five minutes left and I am severely doubting my ability to finish this. When I check the time I also realize that my computer’s battery is strikingly low. “Only 9%?! At this rate I’ll never finish”, I think to myself. I switch between tabs and check the three tips for creating an effective “time bomb device”. I read and noticed I need an antagonist or aggravator in order to “build the time bomb”. In my opinion, my teacher is the antagonist in this story. He constructed the time bomb and ruthlessly dropped it on me and all my classmates. I sit and calculate how much time I need to finish this, along with my other homework. I figured out I have about thirty minutes; including fifteen minutes at the beginning of English to finish this vignette. I also realize my computer battery is now at 5% and dropping. I speed up my typing in order to maximize my battery percentage. My fingers dart around the keyboard at lightning speed and my eyes jump from word to word. Any faster and my keyboard would catch on fire. Everything is going perfectly when my screen goes black and my keyboard shuts off. My computer is dead. I shut my screen and hustle down to the library to charge my computer. I arrive and sit down only to realize I left my charger upstairs at the Thurston bench. I ran all the way back up the ramp to grab my charger and run all the way back.
I am back in the library and praying that the outlet I chose works. Delightfully, the white apple logo pops up on my screen and I am back in business. My fingers move faster than light and I finish sentence after sentence. While I am typing I think about if this is all a good idea. Is it smart to write a story about what you are currently doing? Is this idea creative or dumb? Will my teacher appreciate my writing?
I look up from my flurry of typing to realize I have about three minutes left to get to class. I bolt up the Pauahi stairs and open the door to my classroom and sit down. My teacher talks for a bit but eventually allows us to finish up our vignettes. My stomach settles as I plug my computer in and write my last couple words. I finish my writing and submit my assignment on canvas nine minutes before we have to share..
1:59:59
Photo by Sena
It was the third of May, 2023. I had a large assignment to do for a school. An essay. This essay required three fifteen year old brains to all merge and work together to create a factual writing masterpiece. This is a challenging thing to do, as the cooperation and collaboration process for fifteen year old brains works slowly. Prior to the brain merging process, we were assigned by our teacher to create an essay of our own. I don’t mind working by myself as it brings me peace, and allows me to be fully responsible for whatever it is that I am doing. Which is why sometimes, whenever I am put into a group for a project, while it is much more fun and more realistic that working solo, I feel like I am not as productive compared to when I work by myself. This was all for a class I am taking called Global Sustainability through Design (Science). Just to give you some background, this class was the first to catch my eye when I was looking through all of the possible classes I could take in my freshman year of high school. Throughout this entire year, this class overall has been great. Great classmates and a couple of awesome teachers. However, ever since this class began, it was a challenge. It had a competency based grading system. Making it very difficult to get a good grade and forcing you to put in one hundred and ten percent effort into each assignment. While it may sound like I am complaining, which I sort of am. This is one of the reasons for why I enjoy this class. It’s a challenge. A transition. A wake up call that you are in high school. The day before Star Wars day. It is the present day. The third of May. Two o’clock pm, not 2:01 pm, but 2:00. That was the time our group essay assignment was due. Prior to that day, a week ago to be exact, was when the process of combining three brains began. At that point, we had all finished writing our own individual essays and were put into teams of either three or four. Then once that whole process was finished, we were able to collaborate with each other and combine our essays. At the start, we were not very productive and were off to a slow start. It wasn’t until that Friday or Saturday when we all flicked a switch in our brains and got to work. We had a total of four days left. Which was technically three and a half days because it was due during the fourth day. The toughest part about this project in particular was that it was hard for us to get work done on our essay because we couldn't make forward progress without being with each other communicating. So, whenever we had class time to work on our essays, we had to work productively and effectively. At this point our time was running out. It was Tuesday night. The night before our essay was due. Our essay for the most part was finished, but we definitely had a couple of holes to fill. We hadn’t even started doing our citations. I feel like citations were the one thing that slowed us down and caught all three of us off guard. This was because we all didn’t think that it would take us as long as it did, it was time consuming. Something that we all thought we could get done in maybe fifteen minutes but took you closer to forty five minutes to finish. It was like a phone call with one of your parents. The call could either be as short as fifteen to twenty seconds or go as long as ten to fifteen minutes. I vividly remember.
1:55.
Typing as quickly as I could at the time. Trying to figure out how to attach our essay to the canvas assignment we were supposed to submit it to.
1:56, the essay was uploaded.
1:57, essay submitted.
1:58, error submitting.
1:59, successfully submitted essay.
Despite the limited amount of time to complete my assignment, I was able to finish it. It was a Sunday afternoon and I had a project where I had to write an old English quote, a banner that represent me, and a family tree on a poster. This assignment was due on Monday and I had to present it to my classmate and teacher to tell about my family tree and explain the images inside my banner. There was tons of work to be done and had to finish by tonight with precision, otherwise, I would have a low-quality poster and get a bad grade which would be a problem for me.
The work had to be done with no time to waste and I had to make it look beautiful. The first I did was to brainstorm what I draw and how. When I was done with brainstorming I went straight to drawing my brilliant art. For my family tree, I wrote a thick, tall Eiffel Tower with a leaf that is green as a Grinch. As I was writing a tree I would include some Japanese fruit to symbolize my culture. As I was done with the family tree I felt fatigue drawing that humongous tree drained too much of my strength and made me feel like taking a break. I was about to rest but I imagine how great it will feel after I finish all my work and rest in my soft and fluffy bed just like a marshmallow. That gave me motivation for the next part the banner.
For my banner, I had to draw images that symbolize my nationality, ancestor, and old age. As my first option, wrote the Japanese flag to represent my culture. As well as a bow and arrow, crown, shield, and sword to symbolize my ancestors and old age. The banner took the least amount of time and I was done with my last part. This part took me the most time and the most important part of my project which was to write old English. The Old English needed me to learn how to use an ink pen and how to write letters in old English. I was not able to make a single mistake or I had to do everything from the start which I would hate to do. The quote I had to write was a quote that was told by a priest in old age and had been known for decades. The quote had 75 words and made me feel like I have a nightmare. I had to deep breaths and wrote the word one by one and just silently work on the quote. After 30 minutes I was 75% done and had to do one more push to be done with my project. After a few more minutes, I was able to finish the project which took me 1 30 minutes. It was 11 pm and I was too fatigued that when I went to my bed I went to sleep in an instant.
Ancestors Photo by Nate
Garin
Author Statement
Two authorial strategies that I include in my vignettes are imagery and similes. In my first vignette, “Balance,” I wrote about handling homework and how I sometimes have a difficult time reading. While writing about that topic I wrote, “It felt as if I was trying to keep up two Coca Cola semi trucks” (Paguio Balance). I think this sentence demonstrated my use of both imagery and a simile because while writing it I wanted to make the reader envision my eyelids having a hard time staying open, and the semi trucks was my way of writing about it. I think this sentence also demonstrated my use of the simile authorial strategy because the words, “like as if,” means that the writer (me) is comparing something to something, and in this case it was my eyelids feeling heavy to semi trucks weighing them down.
The image I created for Sena was a drawing of the UK flag. I drew the flag because the vignette that I was making this image for was about Sena’s time at school when he was in London. Along with the flag, I also drew small items that are mentioned throughout Sena’s vignette, such as a juice box and a soccer field. The other image I created was for Nate. I took a picture of the Chinese writing for “family” in a bowl that was at my grandma's house. The thing that inspired me to create this image was my love for photography and the fact that Nate’s vignette is about him getting closer with his grandparents through Chinese class in school.
Author Statement
In my essay I have wrote about my time in London, and how I felt when I was finishing my school project. Some literary devices that I have included in my essay are imagery, and using strong word to describe my situation. One example is “I finish all my work and rest in my soft and fluffy bed just like a marshmallow. “. This is one example of how I used my literary device in my vignette.
For the image I drew for my peer I got the inspiration from their main idea and their title. Some similarities they had was they both were using a device to finish their project or assignment. In the essay they wrote that they were struggling and having a hard time so when I drew my drawing I included exclamation mark to show that they are struggling or having a hard time. I also included a face that show fear and confidence in their work.
Sena
Nate
Author Statement
In my first vignette, I become more understanding and closer to Chinese culture, despite being an American. In the beginning of the vignette I use simile and hyperbole to show how abrasive and intimidating Chinese language can be perceived by an outsider. For example, I say, “The language can sound like angry knives being thrown back and forth”. I used a simile to show how aggressive and sharp Chinese can sound to someone who doesn’t speak it. I also used imagery in, “I remember stumbling through basic sentences such as "What is your name" and "nice to meet you". I used imagery to portray what it feels like to practice speaking Chinese with the correct tones. In my second vignette, I say, “I stress and overthink while my fingers glide over the keys like an anxious pianist.” I used a simile in this vignette in order to show what it feels like to rush and stress to finish an assignment that you did late.
I made a Japanese flag for Sena’s vignette because I felt that was an integral part of his story. He had to rush to make something that represented his ancestry/history. The main part of the assignment he did was about his japanese ancestry and him working to figure out what happened in the past. I think that the Japanese flag best represents his vignette. I drew a person juggling different colored balls to represent Garin’s vignette in which he writes about struggling to juggle and balance his school workload. I made each ball a different color to represent the varying nature and difficulty of each assignment from each different class.