A Time for Technology

A lot of adults tell young teens that high school is going to be the best years of their lives; but I think I may have a suggestion or two to make it better. One of the most annoying things to me is wasted time. When I was in high school most of my classes were filled with a mixture of students on various levels of intelligence. Having the parents that I had, I was always encouraged to study hard and school wasn't really that much of a challenge for me. I found myself sitting and waiting in class while other students asked questions or caught up on work. I could have been doing so many other things; homework for other classes, my chores at home, painting my toenails. I would often wish that I could compound the amount of time I wasted in class and use it to get out of school early.

My suggestion for high schools now would be to offer online classes, or even hybrid classes with half face to face meetings and half online meetings. This way students get the same amount of work done and can each work at their own pace. Questions can be emailed, chat rooms established, and during face to face classes everyone can collaborate ideas and discuss the subject matter. Students will have more free time to work, or possibly sleep in later if they have trouble functioning early in the mornings. I think that if a freshman in college can take and succeed in an online class, what’s to say high school students can’t?

Of course I don’t think that high schools should be shifted completely to online classes. I really believe that students need the social interaction that comes with the high school experience. I also think that there should be some type of requirements for students to be eligible to take the online classes. Such as a certain grade point average, or possibly a prerequisite class teaching them how to best succeed in online classes; something like SAT prep. This way none of the students are left feeling overwhelmed by the new class arrangement. Also, students should only be allowed to take a certain amount of online classes a semester, maybe up to half. With this set up they’ll still be able to socialize, maintain school spirit, and participate in activities such as spirit week.

By allowing students to have the option of taking their classes online and at their convenience, the school systems would be allowing them to mature and take on more personal responsibilities. I would have loved to have this option when I was in high school. This way I wouldn’t have had to wake up so early and drag my mind through a 7:20am math class, or I could have just stayed at home and painted my toenails. :)

Kimchi Tuna and Shrimp Stew

While I can be shy in person, I am not afraid to write about myself in person; this is probably not as forthcoming as it sounds, and I am just self-absorbed. I decided to go home for fall break, because I wanted to sleep in my own bed, and eat lots of free food. Coming into town I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the city, everything has changed so much since I was here a year ago. New developments are sprouting up all over the place, there are newly planted flowers around my neighborhood, and it seems like I can see charlotte breathing, evolving, and growing up with me. I just wanted to relax, and get my mom to do my laundry, and play my dad in chess. Friends were not on my agenda, because I feel like all my friends do nowadays is party. But randomly I got a call from my friend Karrie, and she invited me to her grandmother’s house for dinner. Coming into the house, I felt like I had entered a different world. I was immediately barraged by the smell of shrimp stew and my stomach started watering. Something told me that my stomach would soon look like the Buddha statue in their hallway.

As we sat on the porch and played catch up, and laughed at how the swarming butterfly moths really look like bumble bees, and drank lemonade, I felt like there was something was forgetting. Oh yea, this assignment. Long story short, I had one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten, and I also received an enlightening lesson in asian cuisine. The difference between Japanese restaurants and Chinese restaurants is that Japanese restaurants offer more atmosphere and finer portions for a greater price; Chinese restaurants use cheap high fructose corn syrup to make their sauces so that they can offer a lot of food for a low price. The home cooked dish we had included white rice, kim, kimchi with tuna, Korean peppers, and shrimp stew. Korean kim is thin and nearly brittle seaweed used to wrap the sticky white rice in, it differs from Thai kim in that it is saltier. Proper ettiqutte is to put the kim face down on a ball of rice, and maybe a little kimchi, and roll it fast down so that the rice falls on the plate. The kimchi which you buy in the store is fermented which gives it a more sour taste, and they use a lot of red pepper. The kimchi which my friends grandmother made has more cabbage, thinly sliced carrots, not as many red peppers, vinegar, fish oil, and chunks of tuna. It is actually similar to the southern classic cole slaw. Korean peppers are just zucchinis marinated for days in a red pepper and soy brine. The table was set according to Victorian etiquette, and the bowls which contained the shrimp stew were at the top right. The stew contained shrimp, potatoes, carrots, red peppers, corn, green beans, not something that is typically Korean, but tasty nonetheless.

Standardized Tests Standardize Minds

I don’t want all students to have the same base knowledge; it’s culturally devastating for the students and the society they will soon help shape. I don’t want millions of carbon copied minds. I don’t want armies of the young marching to the beat of direct instruction with visions of number-two-pencils and bubble sheets dancing in their heads.

Students’ tests scores are used to determine the merits of the students themselves, their schools, their school districts, and the overall education system. In typical news articles about the state of public schools in America, sleek graphics and charts will compare the test scores of American students with the test scores of Chinese students and Norwegian students and Moroccan students. Then the article will shuffle in statistics about the globalized economy. At this point, education becomes nothing more than a foot race. Which society will produce the most productive citizens?

In Jonathan Kozol’s “The Shame of the Nation,” Kozol describes the philosophies of “primitive utilitarianism” and “commodification,” traditionally used to increase the productive efficiency of industry, when applied as teaching methods at an inner-city public school in Columbus, Ohio: “Children, in this frame of reference, are regarded as investments, assets, or productive units—or else, failing that, as pint sized human deficits who threaten our competitive capacities.”

I don’t want students to feel the pressure to perform, lest their school be marked as a failure, a label for the whole community to see. How does it affect their self-esteem, to be a part of a “failing” school, to be one small contribution to a large failure?

Standardized tests don’t contribute to the education of the students. They cause high-stress learning environments and force the curriculum to focus strictly on the subjects to be tested, leaving aside all else, cutting the unnecessary. According to Americans for the Arts, there has been a “22 percent decline in art and music instruction because of No Child Left Behind,” Bush’s public school accountability program.

Some countries and governments have sought to control all art and music, such as Mussolini's Italy, with the Ministry of Popular Culture in the 1930's. Singapore and other countries today have highly regulated internet access, paying particular attention to the filtering of subversive art. While NCLB does not ban any art programs, it creates an environment where a choice must be made during the creation of curriculums. States are being forced to administer standardized tests at almost every stage of the education process. There is no test for art. There is no test for music. Shouldn’t we eliminate this necessity to choose? Shouldn’t America try to stay as far away from cultural control as possible?

What do you think they will choose? The curriculums must focus on the core knowledge that will be tested, or the educators must resign themselves to failing numbers.

We must know that numbers can’t tell us everything about a person.

Students need to know that art is important and that it can change the world on every level, from the personal to the political and the infinite layers in between. And this is why it has been devalued. Art has been cast aside because it embraces change and free thought. It has not been conspicuously banned, but slowly and subtly marginalized, constricted, strangled into silence. We cannot allow generation after generation to go through school with little or no access to art and music.

Let’s not think of students as investments, or assets, or productive units. Let’s not force upon them the perfect business model, or the laws of international trade. Instead, let’s teach daydreaming and doodling.

It's Time for a Change

Every high school has different standards for how their students use their time during school hours. At my own high school, too much time at once was spent in the classroom. We had seven-hour days with only four classes. We never had homeroom time in the morning as other high schools did. We had no break, no study hall, and only a twenty-minute lunch.

Spending that much time sitting a chair, in the years of one’s life when being active is so important, is bad for you. It’s no wonder why so many people in America are obese. High schools such as mine don’t let their students move around and get blood flowing to their brains. Students need small breaks to be able to successfully perform in school. A twenty-minute lunch was not enough time to stand in the long lunch line and try to find a seat and eat a meal. I never was able to completely finish a meal or take my time eating. I even remember times when the meal line was so long and the cafeteria was so full that I never even had time to find a seat and eat.

The time between classes was three minutes. This left no time to go to one’s locker if it was not close to their classroom. There were some days when I had to carry all my books with me all day because I didn’t ever have time to go to my locker. Instead of having just three minutes between classes, there should be around 10 or 12 minutes of time to give students a little break between subjects and have time they don’t move around.

Having a study hall session would also be a good idea. I remember my mother being surprised I didn’t have study hall in my high school career as she always had one per semester. It’s a time to get work done, catch up on academic matters, and prepare for classes. Young adults in high school usually have many after school activities. I remember there being little time to do all my homework, especially since I was in more advanced classes. Course loads would be more manageable if there was time spent in study hall.

The amount of time in each class is tremendous. High schools should have at least five classes per day because the attention span of a high school student is not long enough to last over an hour and a half per class with no breaks. If subjects were more broken up, students would be able to concentrate better and take in more knowledge. I remember that after the first hour of one subject, I and other students would start to daydream or not be able to pay attention as well. If my school was set on their ways of keeping just four classes per day, than just a simple break in the middle of a classes for a few minutes would help tremendously. One day I believe my high school will change its ways. It’s hard to believe that my mother’s high school was more advance then my own. When obesity and other physical and mental problems start to occur because this vigorous schedule, the time management will change.

Opening More Options

Americans are losing our ability to pay attention. Several studies have indicated the best way to teach children is in seven-minute increments. It seems that is the average programming time in between commercials. From the time we can prop our babies up in a walker or swing, they have been stimulated this way by the big box in the room. We are conditioning our society to pay attention for just over a tenth of an hour at a time. If this is true, as it seems to be, why are we then trying to educate our high-schoolers in 90-minute blocks? We need to return to the system where classes are less than an hour and there are more choices than just English, math, science and history in a day. If we improve interest in school, we in turn improve the quality of students in it. And isn't that ultimately the goal of education?

Class lengths as well as school days are different from state to state, even from county to county. For the most part, North Carolina high schools have gone to block scheduling, which is four 90-minutes classes and a lunch period in a school day. The state requires each student to receive a set amount of instruction in math, English, science and history – the core subjects. In order to accomplish this with block scheduling, the elective and enrichment classes are cut drastically or removed altogether. Gone are the advanced art and music appreciation classes. No longer available are classes such as masonry, drafting, and photography. Even classes that expound on the core subjects such as a History of the Far East or Women's Literature have no place. If we can’t interest students with 90 minutes of basic history or English, it is just too bad. There is no time to give them alternatives which may appeal to them and encourage their curiosity and love of learning.

We have to get away from the concern of test scores and become engaged in what is best for our students. Our drop-out rate is horrendous. College educators are noticing the quality of incoming freshman is dropping at an alarming rate. Our students can take a test but they have no idea what Sputnik was or the significance of Chopin’s music on our current culture. These, along with infinite other bits of knowledge, are something not learned in a block scheduled basic class. We have to make room for this information.

Seven-minute classes aren’t possible or practical, but seven class periods a day is another matter. A return to a more varied schedule opens up more options and gives room for developing new curriculum that stimulates different students in different ways. Perhaps that is the best way for no child to get left behind.

A Voice for All

High schools do not foster students’ talents. It has become nothing more than being forced to learn eight subjects a day that hopefully a student would care about one of them. They force subjects on you that don’t help you look at the world with discerning eyes. I think instead of making you read older books like Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451 and Frankenstein they should make you do your own research paper. It would be on something a student liked but formatting, cohesiveness and grammar would be objectively graded. How can a student have any passion about reading something like a novel that he is assigned when they will just go and find the summary notes in a bookstore to write what the teacher wants to hear? Instead he should be allowed to write about something that is important to him. I don’t see how it is unique for teachers to assign you the same books that are being read nationwide. No one cares if you’ve read these throw away books but people do care if you can write well, have passion and can describe something new to readers who have little knowledge in what you are talking about. If reading a book is mandatory then it should be a book that a student chooses to read and not from a list by the teacher.

Instead of having eight classes a day they should have two. You should tell them what you plan on studying in college whether you are going into the arts, English, math or sciences or business. Then you would take general classes until you found what you liked. If you spent more time on your subjects then you would build a craft and sharpen some preexisting skills. They should also help you utilize your skills in real life. If you are in English they should make you make you write articles for small newspapers or at least school papers. If you give students the chance to write about things that are a concern in the schools they will write with more passion and conviction than forcing them to read old classics they have no interest in. Subjects should be practical. If a kid wants to read a classic work he can do so at the library or bookstore. Integrating subjects as well might add some excitement to the prison that is high school. If a writer was doing an article on a particular theme then he would ask a photography student to take a picture that evoked the feeling that he was looking for. It could work as well for the photographer if that writer was to write an essay on what he thought the photographer was trying to say in how he shot a picture. He could describe why he chose a certain angle, aperture, filter and so forth. This would make students appreciate other subjects without being forced to take them. If you give students freedom to choose their own path then they will excel in there interests and you most likely wouldn’t have to worry about disciplining a kid who was being disruptive in class. It is all about giving students a voice.

Nature's Retaliation

The sun had just slipped behind the horizon, and a warm breeze was whispering to every leaf on every tree as my father, brother, sister, and I hiked through a forest of pines nestled directly behind our house. My father, who studied the habits of Michigan whitetail deer, told us that if we kept quiet, we might see some wildlife. The promise of seeing a squirrel, a raccoon, or perhaps even a deer, had silenced us, and we scanned the woods, jumping at anything that resembled a tail or antlers. We solemnly followed our father in single file, like priests on a sacred pilgrimage to a holy offering site.

At first, the wood’s diverse exhibit of flora and fungi occupied my attention. But, after about an hour, boredom set in. My body was the main course for the famished mosquitoes that infested the woods, and a thick cloud of them hovered around me, unbearably biting at any piece of exposed skin. Our strict adherence to the no-talking rule made time creep more slowly than it should have, and my legs, after trudging over two miles, felt like they were shackled to a wrecking ball. I wanted to return home, but my father meandered leisurely up ahead, bending down frequently to analyze deer tracks and droppings. Obviously, he had no intention of halting his expedition.

To keep myself busy and to counteract for my growing ennui, I began investigating every interesting object in the forest. I lifted up rocks to see what lived beneath them, harvested odd looking fungal growths for future use, plucked petals off flowers just for sport, and smeared slugs against trees to see if their insides contrasted with the bark. Preservation of the environment wasn’t a high priority.

“Quit destroying nature!” my father commanded after witnessing me knot a bow-tie with a newly-acquired garter snake.

“Why?” I asked, irritated that he had broken our rule of silence and prohibited me from diverting my boredom.

“Because I said so!”

“Because I said so” didn’t seem like a very good reason. Nevertheless, I complied, drifting to the back of the line and sulking in frustration.

While I brooded, I came across a huge hollow log lying on the path. I evaluated the log’s strength, and, judging from its rotted appearance, decided that I could easily break it open. Stepping back, I sprinted and jumped, and with a satisfying crack my feet splintered the dead wood.

As I looked down to assess the damage, an angry humming erupted at my feet. All too late, I realized that I had disturbed a hidden nest of ground hornets, and now the enraged insects sought revenge. Before I could react, a yellow-black blur flew towards my face. I swatted at it, but it landed on my right eyelid, injecting burning formic acid into the skin. I screamed and clutched at my eye, the sting feeling like the prick of a red-hot needle. As I screeched, something with wings landed on my bottom lip, crawled into my mouth, and lodged itself between my tonsils. A reflex forced me to gag, but my spasmodic choking only aided in pushing the hornet further into my esophagus. Inside my throat I felt the squirming insect struggle, frantically stinging my insides in a futile effort to survive. The pain I felt was not limited to my interior, for the demons were attacking every piece of exposed flesh. In vain, I tried to escape the inhuman torture by flailing my arms, but with every horrible sting I became more and more disoriented in the cyclone of hornets. As the terrain started to spin, my head struck the ground and the world went dark.

When I woke up, a florescent light glared directly above my face and overwhelmed my bloodshot eyes. A blurred figure stood over me, and I could hear soft voices discussing some matter in hushed tones. I felt like the victim of a sadistic acupuncturist, my skin blazing. As I regained my vision, the image of my father standing over me became visible. After asking how I felt and informing me that I was in the emergency room, he said, “You asked me why you shouldn’t destroy nature. Well, I think you have your answer.”

Crossing Over

Last week I was talking to a friend, reminiscing of our time in Iraq. I am a Soldier, he is a Marine. Our experiences were similar. Aside from nearly being killed several times in the same day, the other memory that sticks out in my mind is crossing over the border into Iraq at night.

We gathered our gear in the morning, receiving our briefing from Captain Mason. I was responsible for ensuring all communications functioned on the convoy from Camp Udairi, Kuwait, into Scania, Iraq. Having already prepared the night before, I could focus on my job, checking radios for each vehicle. The soldiers in the other platoons already checked in, so I could give them the “go-ahead” and I could focus on the headquarters element. I ran to each vehicle, my rifle slamming against my back as I dashed and jumped in I knew Captain Mason would want a status report as soon as I was done, and time wasn’t on my side.

30 minutes passed, and already it was 1800. I had only 30 more minutes until the second convoy (the headquarters vehicles) was leaving. I delegated one of my soldiers to help me finish up so we could be on time. Captain Mason called out from the vehicle and I ran, the gate of the Stryker closing. I took my position in the air guard hatch, rifle poised, thumb ready to switch from safety to semi in case I had to send an insurgent to Allah. My index finger ran parallel with the top of the rifle, able to move with my thumb just as easily in one fluid motion. My palms began to sweat profusely, my heart racing as every minute passed. This was the real deal, what my Battalion Commander had been telling us for almost 2 years. Here we were, on the brink, only a couple of hours from the Iraqi border.

Hearing the traffic over the radios made me smile. I had done my job effectively and I knew that communication was essential for any mission. The silent desert sun sat on its perch, just as an ancient sheikh would sit among his followers in the days of Muhammed. Flat earth, scrub, and desolation ran as far on the horizon as I could make out, my government-issued Oakleys protecting my squinting eyes. Yet, the discomfort was short-lived, sunset creeping in and the clear night engulfing the landscape in its wake. The rhythmic hum of the Stryker’s engines was almost like a lullaby, tempting us with sleep and the promise of peaceful dreams. Knowing where we were, that’s all it was – temptation.

Darkness finally descended, and by the sound of the radio traffic, I could tell we were in some no-name town. Power lines hung dangerously low, so we had to tie down our antennas on the vehicle. Being an air guard, along with our company sniper, Sergeant Davis, I felt uneasy, and on several levels, I was deathly afraid. Having a sniper there did almost nothing to dispel my angst and fear. Dim lights dotted the corners of the cheaply built slums. Garbage was in piles haphazardly along the street, making an obstacle course for us to weave through. I heard voices coming from the right, near the entrance of a burned out store. The hair on the back of my neck began to rise, my eyes opened wider and I switched out the dark lenses in my sunglasses to the clear protective lenses. The air was putrid; the smell of rotting garbage mixed with human feces was enough to make you vomit on yourself. The feeling of moving through the ghost-like town was surreal; I felt transported, like nothing was real. A harder reality came, though, when I saw an Iraqi down an alleyway point an AK-47 directly at me and almost had my eardrums blown out when Sergeant Davis let out one round from his sniper rifle.

Undisclosed

High up in the mountains, buried beneath the vast canopies of the country's forests, are the best freshwater fishing holes in the world. When the word gets out that there’s a new fishing spot, the lake, river, or stream becomes overcrowded and it can be devastating for many anglers. I had the privilege of exploring several different terrains when I was growing up. Whether I was climbing and clawing through the Catskill Mountains or gazing down the beaches of Long Island, I always kept my eyes open for a special fishing plot that I could claim as my own.

That place just happened to fall upon me one day during a bike ride. The land was state property, but no one ever kicked up a fuss at the occasional bike rider or hiker. Nestled deep in the abandoned woods and hidden by a canvas of autumn gold and summer green was a forgotten lake. A recent hurricane had ravaged the area. Fallen trees were everywhere. The thinned landscape allowed me to spot the lake for the first time. The place was more than I could have hoped for. It was home to me.

The land was old. Decrepit and aging roads weaved their way through a cornucopia of endless hills, waving fields, and aching forests. The area had once been home to many people. In the 1930s, houses and small factories were scattered throughout the area. The only access was across a single overpass. Huge steel gates kept out all traffic. Only bicyclers and a few hikers occasionally ventured past the gates and into the unknown.

On a patch of grass, beneath a grand weeping willow, I would sit and cast my line. The fishing was incredible. Nearly every day I would pull out record sized catches. Nobody believed my stories, but I wasn’t about to let just anyone in on my secret.

Upon arriving one afternoon, I found something quite wrong. The echoes hit me first. They were not native to any species that lived in the immediate area. I crept into my usual location and saw my worst fear… people. My secret was out. It was only a matter of time before the place became swarmed. And it did. I rarely had the lake to myself after that. Soon, I stopped going all together.

Within a year, the place was officially a state park. But it wasn’t just the lake; it was everything. Hundreds of acres were opened up to the public. The once abandoned roads became highways for four wheelers and dirt bikes. Fresh trails burned through the foundations of once existing houses and factories.

A year later I decided to go for a walk through my old sanctuary. I took in the memories with every fresh breath. My girlfriend and I would run through the abandoned apple orchards when we were younger. We’d lie beneath the trees until sundown and then we’d scare ourselves back home. But the orchards didn’t look the same anymore. The trees were now bare. The landscape was nothing short of raped. There were new clearings set up as camp sites. Trash littered the surrounding woods. After several hours of walking, I came upon my once admired lake.

As the leaves crackled at the swooping wind, I heard winter on the horizon. I sat on a bench and carved my initials into the back rest. I never went fishing at that lake again but I managed to find my way there on a regular basis. The fish were gone. The people were gone. New lakes had been discovered, and that lake quickly forgotten by many. I let the fresh air fill my lungs until my chest was about to explode. I spent the evening perched on that bench, admiring the pink sun as it drifted beneath the horizon, its beams grasping for air.

The last time I was visiting family in New York, I decided to take a walk through the park. I was amazed at how quickly the land consumed me. The orchards were beautiful again. Apples fell from the trees and rolled through my soul as I passed. The view from the ridge was just as gorgeous as it had ever been. I stared at an old familiar oak tree and the crooked heart and withering initials etched into it; a love from so long ago. When I had seen almost everything, I went home.

Underdogs

Oh my gosh, it’s 11:30 already. This would be the one and only day that I dreaded leaving Ms. McGee’s algebra class and heading to lunch at 12:10.

“Hey, so are you ready for tonight?” my neighbor John whispered as I was trying to look busy with my math problems, all the while trying my best to keep at bay the giant birds that had been growing from the small butterflies in my stomach all week.

“What? Uh yeah, sure,” I replied to him. I didn’t want to talk about it; I was implying it as blatantly as possible.

“It’s gonna really suck if you guys get killed.” He smirked.“We won’t,” I said trying to convince myself and the jackass next to me. “I’ll look to you for comfort if we are embarrassed; you guys have plenty experience with slaughters in state games. Oh wait, when was the last time you guys made it to post-season?” That should shut him up; also improved my mood a tad.

“All right class; make sure that you are prepared for the test next week. And good luck to the girls in your soccer game tonight!”

We were going to need it, and everyone knew it. For the week prior to this game tonight, there had been nothing but posts on message boards and articles in the paper about how lucky we were playing in the State Championship Finals this year. We were a good team, skilled and fast. We were ranked every season and did well in post-season. But they said this year was a fluke. We had a new coach and lost some of our best seniors the season before, our team was young and inexperienced.

We were going to be playing Immaculate Conception. This team was more than good, it was a dynasty. They hadn’t lost a state championship in five years and hadn’t lost a single game in three! They were ranked third in the nation. How were we, a little team of mostly juniors and sophomores even to compete with a team of all seniors? Players that had been groomed for these kind of games their whole high school career? They were the “Blue Wolves.” I imagined monsters, freaks of nature disguised as high-school girls. The more I thought of the pressure, the closer I came to releasing it all over my desk.

As I headed to lunch, I sat down with my friends, some of which were on the team with me. How are they so relaxed right now? I fervently wished that time would stop and we wouldn’t have to play, as if that were really a possibility at all.

Rain! Rain! Pour! Hurricane!

“Lenehan, are you ok? You look green” asked my friend Megan. “Don’t be nervous,” she replied while slapping me on my back. “They don’t expect much from us, so there really isn’t any way to go but up with this team.”

“Unless they beat us by ten and two of those goals were scored by me.” I said gloomily, “Is that a rain cloud?”

“Shut up! It’s the tint on the window,” said Jaime. “Stop thinking about mistakes you might make. If you keep thinking like that it’s gonna happen. And if it does, I’ll kill you!”

I guess she was right. I just wanted it to be over with. The bell rang for third block. Only two more classes to go.

We were able to leave class an hour early at the end of the day. Everyone looked sick with nervousness, except those girls that always seemed to be able to pump up a room no matter what. We all piled into the bus and headed to the Kaene University Stadium, where we going to be playing underneath the lights later that night.

We pulled up to the stadium and we started our ritual of banging on the ceilings and windows of the bus, screaming and pumping up. The opposing team just stared and smirked. I felt like a man released into a ring of starved lions, fully aware and excited about the one-sidedness of the battle.

As the sun went down, the wind chill followed. Our skin stung with each whip of frozen air. Our muscles were clenched and tight. The only increase in that moment was the visibility of each exhale and the tension in the stadium. Girls were scattered all over the large field jumping, stretching, jogging, and bundling up; all in preparation for that first whistle of the next ninety minutes of our lives. The lights flickered on as our coach announced the starting lineup.

My name was called over the loud speaker at the beginning of the game and I felt a surge of excitement and adrenaline. I stepped out onto the massive, freshly painted field. A whirlwind of nerves and thoughts whipped through my brain, I kept saying “I am here, this is amazing. You’ll do great.” The stadium was full, with friends and family. There were coaches and players from different high schools and some college coaches. I was finally ready. The pressure is on, time to win a championship!

The game was long, and we were being worked. They were huge, aggressive and played well together. But we were good too. We were quick, sharp and tough. We weren’t going down without a fight. As we set up for the last play of the game it was still 0-0. My chest felt as though someone were sitting on top of it. I was winded, exhausted, freezing, sweaty, and anxious. The anxiety continued to mount as my teammate ran to place the ball at the corner of the field for a corner kick. The ball was lofted into the air and across the field and landed directly on the foot of our wingman. The net shook as the ball rocketed to the back of the goal.

Goal! We just scored a goal!

We ran fast at the girls who accomplished our slight lead. We jogged to back to our positions. Words of encouragement from both sides rang throughout the field, “It’s not over yet, stay strong! We got this!”

The game restarted. Thirty seconds later, the sound of two short whistles, then a long drawn out whistle.

It’s over! That’s it! We did it! We won!I couldn’t think over the roar of the crowd. I couldn’t see as I went crashing into a cluster of my teammates and felt the slight sting of tears in my eyes. The opposing team hung their heads. Some were successful at fighting the tears; some could not keep their composure. It felt amazing. We were champions.

They said we couldn’t do it, it was a fluke, but we did. The last weeks of summer spent in double sessions in the blazing heat, the loss of our weekends and Friday nights, afternoons playing in the snow- all of it brought us here. We received the ultimate reward. An enormous trophy. A nice new black coat. A silver ring with champion engraved on it. A big banner in our gym for everyone to see. A place in history, the team of Davids that brought down the Goliaths. I can’t wait to rub all over John’s face.

Dollar Tacos

Everyone has a traditional hangout place. Back home, my friends and I had a local restaurant; it didn’t matter if you were actually eating or not. Every Friday we were there and stayed for hours. When I first moved to Wilmington, I wasn’t sure if I would ever find something like that again. One random night I was riding down Market Street and noticed a sign in front of a small restaurant called Carolina Cantina that read “Dollar Tacos Every Tues & Thurs." That Thursday night I was figuring out somewhere to eat dinner, and then I remembered the sign. So, I called three of my friends and we decided to try this place out.

The parking lot was full, so I expected a long wait. From the outside, it appeared to be a typical Mexican restaurant. To our surprise we only had to stand ten minutes before being seated. Inside, the building was decorated with colorful lights and amusing beer signs. There is a small bar right when you walk in, and combination of booths and tables throughout the restaurant. The lights were turned down low, and the sounds of exciting, festive music filled the air. I felt like I was having fun just sitting there. Although it is a Tex-Mex restaurant, the atmosphere would be enjoyable for anyone. I looked around and noticed a variety of customers: college students, adults, and a few families. It had a very relaxed and laid back feel. Our waitress quickly arrived and gave us menus. She was very nice, funny, and polite. All the waitresses casually tended to the tables, clothed in jeans, tennis shoes and tank tops. It was refreshing to see there was no strict dress code. We munched down on the chips and salsa, then ordered a few beers. Luckily, Corona and Dos Equis are on special during the dollar taco nights.

Conversation and laughter went on for twenty minutes before we even ordered, but the waitress didn’t seem to mind. She talked with us and told us more about the place. The building set up looked familiar, and come to find out it used to be a Pizza Hut. We finally ordered food; I got two chicken tacos and my friends got beef. They were at our table in a matter of minutes. I was a little skeptical about the tacos which were small and didn’t look delicious. The first bite proved me wrong. After engulfing both, I was stuffed. I am still not sure how such small tacos filled me up, but they did. We continued to hang out and talk over another beer. Before I knew it, two hours had passed since we had arrived. When she handed me the bill, my mouth dropped. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was, even with the drinks. It was such a relief not to spend over ten dollars on dinner.

Two years have passed, and every Tuesday night is set aside for dollar tacos. I look forward to it every week, and it never gets old. I always go with at least three friends, and we always stay at least one hour (even though it only takes up twenty minutes to order and eat). We know two of the waitresses personally, and they always take good care of us. I still order the same thing every time, and it is always great. Even if I have had the worst day possible, going there to eat and hang out lifts my whole mood. The atmosphere hasn’t changed, and neither has our traditional hang out place. I am so thankful that my friends and I have our own regular spot here that always guarantees a good time. Dollar taco night isn’t just a cheap meal, it’s a great time.

I just want to write...

I just want to write. I want to embrace the inner creative genius and write a masterpiece. I want to externalize the million and one thoughts that flow through my brain. I want create a perfect piece of writing. I just want to write.

"Go ahead and write it, then," you might say, or, "Do it, man!" That sounds like a good idea. I sit poolside with my pen and paper with the given task and begin the supposed creation of my personal masterpiece. The conditions are ideal for the creation, comfortable chair, relaxing music, no distractions. I am in the zone. But, nothing comes. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nothing.

I am what I have recently come to realize, a writing perfectionist. I become so consumed with the ideal of creating an amazing piece of writing that I rarely even begin. My thoughts wander. Massive amounts of thoughts concerning what to write about race through my mind. I pick a hundred topics to write on and with each new one, I think, "This is the one, This is it!" All is lost in the chaos of my racing mind. I struggle to take a topic and proverbially run with it. I lose the ability to literally, empty my mind and just let the thoughts pour out. I have so much to say but have no clarity. It becomes a jumbled mess.

The sun shines through the clouds but only for a second as the clouds cover it up for minutes at a time. The process repeats, nanoseconds of sunlight followed by minutes of cloud cover.

This is my brain. Short, impulsive thoughts of a creative genius are followed by long hiatuses of mental struggle. Every now and then, a brilliant light will shine through, but as quickly as it came, it becomes lost in the clouds.

I did not write the last three blogs that were assigned. I wasn't playing Halo. I wasn't watching sunday afternoon football. I wasn't sipping Busch Light on Wrightsville Beach. I was sitting at my computer having a veritable cerebral meltdown trying to find clarity. I was searching for the clarity to write. I was trying to clear away the clouds long enough for something to shine through. Nothing shone through. The clarity never came. Three times.

But, something different happens. I sit at the pool and take all the rubbish floating in my brain and get rid of it. I empty my mind of the junk and let the thoughts pour out, the gold . No confusion, no clouds, no jumbled messes. I start with a sentence that reads, "I just want to write." As if there was a tube connecting my thoughts to the pen, everything just flows out. It becomes clear. Hundred of topics fill the pages. Before, I couldn't take a thought anywhere. Now, each and every thought brings me to another thought that brings me to the next thought. It is a self-perpetuating cycle. I find an infinite amount of tangents

-with
-a
-million
-things
-to
-say
-about
-each.

The shine is beautiful.

Synapses fire. Everything clicks. The pen bleeds my blood, my soul. The sun peers through the clouds. The clouds try to block out the sun. But, when the sun shines, it really shines. My mind frees itself of the mental clouds. I find a way to defeat the mental confusion. Just let go and write. No more clouds.

Sarah

It was a beautiful warm day, with deep blue skies I have always believed can only be found in a state named Carolina. I sat outside the dorm I had moved into the day before, along with other freshmen who were anxious to make new friends. We discovered that Brandon, a sophomore, knew all the details of the murder of a girl on our floor the year before, and we listened with perked ears as he filled us in. We were all spooked by the room that we could see through a locked glass door; however, the girl was someone we didn’t know, and her friends, except for Brandon, were people who banded together and didn’t socialize. So we listened intently, but the story was just a story about a girl we didn’t know.

Three months later, we had all become accustomed to the glass door and were satisfied with the details we had gathered. One night I excitedly got ready for a keg party at Carolina Beach. Grateful that my roommate had gone to visit her boyfriend for the weekend, I threw clothes on and off till I finally decided what to wear, grabbed my bag and locked my room.

I piled into a car with my three new best friends and we made the twenty-minute drive down to Carolina Beach. The North End was packed with familiar faces, as almost my entire dorm had decided to make an appearance. Boys in jeeps and trucks ferried people a mile down the beach to the bonfire. A girl handed me a red plastic cup of warm beer, and I obediently drank while she chatted. “Oh, did you hear about that girl from Honor’s dorm that died? I think her name was Sarah,” she chirped. I knew only one girl in that dorm, and her name happened to be Sarah, but nonchalantly I asked, “Not Sarah Wing, right?” “Yeah, that was her name!” She said it almost like we had discovered a mutual friend.

My beer felt like cement in my stomach, but I still wasn’t sure she could be right. I had just seen Sarah the night before, remembering how she had yelled my name and waved vigorously with a big smile on her face when she spotted me walking to class. A pretty girl with waist length, curly hair, she treated me as a best friend even though we hadn’t been acquainted that long. She had been a refreshing change for me when I was discovering a cattiness among girls that I wasn’t used too.

People who didn’t know her already had the details: she had crossed lanes and driven head on into an eighteen wheeler going home an hour after I had seen her. A girl I knew spotted me crying and began crying herself, hysterically. She was comforted by a few cute boys after drawing their attention with her sobs. “So you were friends with her, too?” I asked. “Nooo, but it’s so sad…” she drunkenly replied. I was insulted for Sarah; I felt it was a degrading to her memory to have her death become a bit of cheap drama at a cheap party.

Blue lights appeared, and people scattered. I tossed my cup into the dark, feeling guilty for partying when Sarah had lost her life. The girl pulled me into the dunes, insisting she was doing me a favor. We walked around for half an hour, until we worked up the nerve to see if the police were issuing underage drinking tickets. Returning to what was left of the party, I ran around trying to find my friends. A girl eventually told me that a boy dubbed Tango, our current student body president, was already practicing his leadership skills and yelled that our dorm was officially leaving. No wonder he was elected, as everybody had followed him. Even my girlfriends.

Gloomily, I hitched a ride back off the beach and discovered that no one was willing to give a stranger a ride back to campus. I sat on a curb until a boy I knew walked up and asked me if I needed a ride. I jumped in his shiny SUV, only to discover that he had also offered rides back to nine other girls. One girl was piled on another, and legs were dangling out the back window. I was silent as we left the beach.

For the second time that night, blue lights appeared and my heart dropped, wondering how much trouble we were in. A cop shone his light around the car, but finally after giving a stern warning to our driver to get us home safe, he let us go, to a chorus of female voices yelling “Thank you so much, officer. You have a good night too!” Everyone was intoxicated and happy, and I was numb. The drunk girls around me were giggly after our “scary” brush with the law.

I trudged up to my dorm, and realized I had left my key and my cell phone in my friend's car. I began to cry, wishing I was in my bed and could really let the sobs take over. I banged on my friend's door; her roommate opened it to inform me that she had chewed the girls out for leaving me, and they were heading back to Carolina Beach to look for me.

Everyone was in bed, sleeping off the beer and liquor, and leaving me feeling helpless and alone. I sat outside the dorm on a cold, dewy bench and chain smoked until Brandon and the freshmen recruits for his band left their demo CD and came outside. “So how was the party?” Brandon asked, with a superior tone of voice. He was too good for our parties. “Sarah Wing died.” I replied. “Who’s that? At the party? What happened?” He asked, as if waiting expectantly for a juicy story. It reminded me of myself three months earlier, asking him about the murder.

It took an hour for my friends to show up with my dorm key, and they were full of stories about how some guy took them four wheeling around the beach and it was so sketchy and cold and blah blah blah. I mumbled my thanks, took my key and stumbled into bed. I slept, wanting to avoid the devastated mood Sarah’s death had left me with.

A week later, I was saddened again, this time after noticing a sign taped to the dorm’s front door. It was the only mark of Sarah’s death. Handwritten, it announced a meeting to talk about Sarah’s life in the living room of the Honor’s dorm. After spending the last three months of her life at UNCW, this was the best our school gave her. She was simply a story people gabbed about, saying how sad it was. She was 15 seconds on Channel 7.

Walking towards my dorm one afternoon, I stumbled on Sarah’s friend from her hometown, crying in a tiny white gazebo hidden among trees. She had just returned from the funeral, and was devastated. Nothing in my 18 years had qualified me to help her grieve, but I sat with her. We took drags on our cigarettes while she showed me pictures of Sarah in the hometown parade; pictures of a beaming Sarah at prom. Eventually, we had talked, smoked, and cried ourselves dry, and we both left. I was sad, but at the same time comforted. Sarah was more than a story to those who mattered; our little memorial service was more heartfelt than a hundred of her peers gathering in her memory.

The Protagonist Lifestyle

I started writing this paper on Thursday night. By “started”, I mean I sat down in front of a blank screen and thought about what I was going to write. It is now Sunday night and I’m to this point so far. Since Thursday night I have done four loads of laundry, watched two movies, and been to three bars and a house party. I have also rearranged my living room, watched about thirteen games of football, and even invented a new sport.

I did all these things while the cursor blinked on a blank page on my computer screen. I could have skipped any one of those activities and easily written five hundred words. I mean it was a free write. I could have written about any topic in the world. Now it’s eight o’clock on Sunday night. I have a four page argumentative writing paper and a Portuguese project due in the morning and I’m hurrying to finish a five hundred-word open topic blog that I started on Thursday. I wish I could blame my drinking problem or my friends but I can’t. I’m a protagonist.

This is a problem I know a lot of other college students can relate to. Recently, my roommate, a Cape Fear Sea Dragon, told me he was going to go work on his Biology paper for a while. Twenty minutes later he knocked on my door asking if I wanted to play catch. “What about your paper, isn’t it due tomorrow?” I asked pretending to care about how he did in school. He told me it was but that he was just taking a break. As we were heading out the front door I glanced at his computer and saw exactly what I expected. His computer screen had his name, the date and a title on it. That’s it. I assume he finished the paper at some point but who knows. I’m sure he didn’t worry too much about it and, even through I have three assignments due in the near future, I’m not going to either.

That’s the thing with college students though. For three years now I have been conditioned to function on no sleep, strung out on coffee and adderall. I have seen the sun rise many times while finishing a paper or studying for a final. My parents ask me how this affects my sleep schedule. Schedule? No college student has a sleep schedule. You sleep when you can. You sleep when you don’t have a blog due at midnight, a project due a ten and another paper at eleven. When there’s no good drink specials.

So if you see me on campus tomorrow my eyes will be puffy. I’ll be exhausted. I will look horrible. I’ll be pissed off because I crammed four days worth of work into seven hours. You would think I would have learned by now. As a senior in college, a year away from a job with consequences far greater than a bad grade, I should have some grasp on time management. I don’t. I would spend this last year of school trying to get better but I know I would just wait until the last minute.

Tall Girl Walking

My younger sister Whitney just started her junior year of high school and she has the same AP English teacher that I had when I was in school, Mrs Stro. While calling role, Stro read off the last name “Kerner” and proceeded to question my sister of my whereabouts. When Whitney told her that I go to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Stro replied, “Wilmington?! Oh, that town is way too small for Lia Kerner!”

Since kindergarten, I have always stood about a foot above everyone else, even most of the boys. Lia The Giant. My long fingers creep like spiders over the shoulders of my friends in all our pictures, my lanky legs and arms are always smacking into table edges, walls, chairs—I have the bruises to prove it. Though I am the third oldest child in my family, I am the tallest and am always being mistaken for the oldest. I can handle the clumsiness, the bruises just fine. What bothers me is the fact that my size transcends my physical appearance and projects onto other aspects of myself.

I can never seem to find shoes that fit, pants are never long enough and that seems to translate into my social life as well. I have always struggled to find that exact spot, that precise group of people with which I feel as If I truly belong.

Growing up, I had two older sisters that I was constantly trying to impress. I despised the concept of the annoying little sister, so I made a conscious decision to walk like them, talk like them, dress like them—be them, essentially. As a result, I’ve always felt and been told by others that I was mature for my age. Perhaps that is why I can never seem to find a nice, comfortable size in good friends.

There are several reasons why I feel I don’t belong. I don’t understand what all the college hype is about. I feel that because I am here to absorb as much knowledge as I can, earn the best grades and ultimately graduate with a competitive edge, I am the one that is here for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t come here for “…the night’s I’ll never remember with the friends I’ll never forget,” and for that, I have the hardest time finding my place on this campus. Am I “too old” for college? Did I outgrow that sense of exhilarating thoughtlessness long ago? Is it normal that I would rather talk to a senior citizen than one of my fellow college students at any given time? It is the members of my own generation that I feel I cannot relate to.

I think I lack the recklessness. At a young age, I became skilled in learning from others’ mistakes, so those that my older sisters made; I would observe and tell myself that that was exactly what I didn’t want to do. I think I was able to side-step a lot of the pit-falls of adolescence that way. I’ve never needed to try a cigarette to know they aren’t for me. Perhaps it’s that ache for adventure and experimentation that is essential in the formula for a normal college experience that I am missing. Regardless, yet again, I find myself sticking out, uncomfortably, amidst all the faces.

But I don’t find this seemingly eternal placelessness to be a bad thing. Sure, I am secretly anti-social but that doesn’t mean that I want to be alone forever. I am aware that college is just the beginning—there are so many people left for me to meet. I am not hopeless, I am determined to make the best of my life; use my height to help save the world, go on a cross-country tour teaching anti-social kids how to make friends. To be perfectly honest, things are looking up. You don’t have to feel bad for me, not only am I currently sporting a new pair of jeans that look really great, but these shoes aren’t pinching my feet and my both of my roommates this year stand two inches above the tip top of my head. Maybe I’m not as alone or as big as I had thought, maybe there is life out there, a bright future after all, for this lonely giant girl.

Your Own Happiness

“Does this dress make me look fat?” “Are my arms muscular enough?” Stop! Does it really matter what the world thinks? People center their happiness on what others think. I’m so tired of hearing about the worlds’ opinions. Do you like the dress? Good! - Then wear it. Do you like your arms? Yes? - Then you don’t need more muscle. What matters in this lifetime is your own opinion, not what others’ think.

The world is changing so fast. It is too hard to keep up with the new trends and fashions. The type of clothing or hairstyle that is in style today will be something completely different in a few months. Instead of people trying to fit in with the world, people should be living the way that makes them happy. I grew up with my two older twin sisters who were always worried about what people thought of them. They both thought they were too fat and needed to lose a few pounds. Their hair color changed at least once a month as did their style of clothing. They would never be caught dead in their pajamas or without make up under any circumstance. I remember one night that they both lectured me on going to Wal-Mart in pajamas and what people would think of me. It was 10:00 at night and my siblings wanted ice-cream. I wasn’t going to change my clothes when I was only going to be in a store for five minutes.

Changing your appearance or worrying about your weight is not a bad thing, as long as it is what you want. The problem with caring about others’ opinions and trying to please the world is that you never will. Someone is going to see you as overweight or scrawny, and then others will see you as skinny or muscular. You can’t please everyone so stop trying. More people are born into this world everyday. There will always be a person who is prettier, skinnier, friendlier, more athletic, muscular, and the list goes on. Be true to yourself and what makes you happy and you will have more satisfaction out of your life.

The world is cruel. It portrays people as flawless. It tells us that women need to be tall and skinny and wear a size two. It shows us that men need to be tan, built, and have a 6-pack. Those images are just another opinion. People can be however they choose to be. I have seen my sisters and best friends constantly try to change because of what other people think. That never made them happy. We have one life to live- so why waste it worrying about what other people think. For once, try living life based on your own thoughts and what makes you happy.

More than just chance

My dream was suddenly interrupted by John Mayer belting out the chorus of a song. When I cracked open my eyes to the orange glow of the room, I realized that it was the ringtone I had assigned my mom. As I rolled over to pick up the phone I glanced at the clock, noticing it was12:30 in the afternoon.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I said as I flipped open the phone. “Brant, you need to come home,” said the voice on the other end. Only, it wasn’t my mom – it was her best friend, Ve. “What? What’s wrong, where’s Dot?” I replied frantically. “Bob was in accident, it’s not good,” she said. She explained to me that my mom, Dot, couldn’t come to the phone at the moment and to leave as soon as possible.

I sprung up out of my bed, running to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth quickly and opened my overnight bag, shoveling in whatever clothes were nearby. I stood in front of my closet for a moment, thinking – hanging in front of me was my black suit. I couldn’t let myself grab the suit, I couldn’t resign myself to the fact that I would lose my dad that day.

I was in my car, headed towards Durham less than 15 minutes after getting the call. Soon after, my mom’s ringtone blared out again. This time, it was my mom. She sounded calm, telling me
to take my time and offering no more news on what had happened.

I drove with the music off, reflecting on the conversation my dad and I had the two days before while driving to pick up lunch. He and my mom had surprised me, coming by for a couple of hours just to hang out at my apartment. He told me how proud he was of how I was doing with school and work and that he rarely ever worried about how my life would end up. I told him that it never would have happened if he hadn’t believed in me, even when there were times he shouldn’t have put much faith in me.

All of the sounds of the highway were gone – no wind whipping over my car, no wheels turning over the uneven pavement. There was a complete silence in the car, in my head.
I couldn’t take the silence any longer; I had to flip on the radio. I turned on the Jim Rome
Show, which we had often listened to when we drove together in the afternoon. I was able to take my mind off what was going on for a few minutes at a time but then I’d suddenly remember him carrying me around on his shoulders a Disney World or helping me get out of being grounded.

Two hours of thinking about every imaginable scenario came to an end when I pulled up to my house. The driveway was mostly full and a few cars lined the street.

As I walked to the door, I pulled my green Tampa Bay cap down to my eyebrows and let out a deep sigh. I stepped in and looked up to the living room on the left. The conversation between my mom and her sisters suddenly went silent. The entire room was staring me down as my mom came over and grabbed my hand to lead me upstairs.

She was in front of me, calculating her words.

“What happened,” I said. “It’s not good…not good,” she said quietly with tears in the corners of her eyes. “Is he,” sputtered out as I pulled my cap down further “Is he… still here,” I relplied.
She shook her head and looked me in the eye, “He’s gone, he loved you so much, Brant,” she said as she reached to hug me.

My head rested over her left shoulder with my arms hanging down by my side and staring blankly at the white door. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t speak-- I was paralyzed. The man who taken me in as one of his own at the age of four was gone.

One of his work crew backed into him as he walked across a parking lot to get something for the job inside. When he got hit, he went flying backwards and hit his head in the wrong spot on the pavement. It was almost instant.

Never again would we get to watch a football game together or talk over a plate of fried squash. After all the work he put in to send me to college, he wouldn’t be at my graduation.

I’m not even sure when I realized that my mom was sobbing uncontrollably. When I heard her sobbing, mine began. She kept repeating to me, “he loved you so much, so much.” I said, “I know.”

While the shock of it was all too much at first, I was able to look back over the next few nights and find myself at peace with it.

I’m not into religion or anything of that nature – but I know there was more to our conversation that day than just a chance meeting. Something brought him to me that day, some force brought those words out.

He overcame unimaginable odds everyday and there’s no doubt in my mind that he could have overcome the accident had he wanted to. He was at peace though, his daughter was successful and he thought his little boy was going to be alright. He and Dot had grown much closer recently with me out of the house. He knew where his relationships stood with everyone that mattered and he was proud of everything he had accomplished.

His work here was done.

Ants in My Pants

On the day my next door neighbors moved out, several colonies of ants moved into my house. I had left a pizza crust on my dinner plate in the living room the night before and they had completely covered it with themselves. I ran into my bedroom, cringing and rubbing my forehead as if a genie might pop out and solve my problem. The only place I’d seen ants invade so vigorously was a summer picnic, but my house? Never! I frantically paced the room, trying to think of ways to diverge them. I had never had to deal with such a problem. I’d been one of the lucky few that had never been truly invaded with bugs. I thought maybe if I left them alone, they’d just go away. Then I started to think of them moving into my house as a permanent home, moving from my neighbor’s house to mine. Is that why they had left? Had these ants eaten all their food and moved in, leaving them with nothing but wire on the walls as Mr. Grinch had in How the Grinch Stole Christmas? I pictured these invaders sitting on their couch and arguing over which channels to watch and that being “the last straw!” I imagined my neighbors packing their bags and throwing evil looks the ants’ way as they packed up the moving truck. They did never say why they had left.

I’m not one to kill bugs. In fact, I pride myself in being able to count on one hand the amount of bugs I’ve killed in my lifetime. But a war had been declared and if I didn’t retaliate, I was sure they’d make me move out just like my poor next door neighbors. I loved my house way too much for that to happen, so I looked down at the dark mass and tried to think of how to kill so many little black ants.

I tried to think of what other household liquid might work on such creatures, and came up with Windex, the window and surface cleaner. I figured some ammonia might work and by god it did. I found a bottle of Windex in the back of the car my dad handed down to me and got to work. Once the cleaner was sprayed on an ant, it tried to half run, half swim away, only to find itself twitching several times, and then dying within the minute. It was fabulous. At first I tried targeting the ants one by one. But that wasn’t fast enough: the others were getting the message and running away before I could get to them. And the last thing I wanted was feeling guilty because they were trying to escape my wrath. I needed to catch them off-guard and eating my food. So I moved the bottle of Windex higher up and sprayed from a distance, in rapid succession, killing large masses of ants at a time. It wasn’t long until I felt like an alien-robot destroyer. Nothing could stop Robot #3847 from his planet’s duty.

I moved from the living room to the kitchen, to the garage. All the while bent over like a demented hunch-back taking revenge on his betraying city. I even started spraying areas where there were no ants, but that looked like a place they might march through as a shortcut. Blue streams flowed along the floors and carpets. Forty-five minutes and half a bottle of Windex later, all ants in sight were dead or still twitching. I stood, out of breath and energy, and surveyed my work. The blue splotches of Windex were everywhere, making my floors look like I had an untrained puppy with a taste for blueberry Kool-Aid. I stared over the carnage that was my house and nodded. “Yes,” I thought, “this is the beginning of the end.”

I slept well that night and dreamt of a tall, dark and handsome insect-exterminator taking me out to dinner and a movie, then getting lucky back at my place. I awoke with a sore back, but smiled at the fact that I wouldn’t have another run-in with the ants.

I groggily walked into my kitchen to make a cup of coffee when I felt something on my foot. I looked down after realizing it was an ant, brushed it onto the floor. But it was too late, I felt a small sting. At first I didn’t think much of it because they were just small black ants, not fire ants, which I had an allergic reaction to. However, I now know I am also allergic to small black ants. The stinging grew and grew, so I sprayed some Windex on my foot. Then I put red wine vinegar on it, followed by a piled on mound of baking soda that turned cakey and red from the vinegar, followed by wrapping it up with paper towels and prayed to God my foot would be saved. God not only didn’t save my foot, he put a big puss filled blister on it and made it swell like a balloon.

I cursed those colonies like a sailor in a bar, dragging a trail of paper towel behind me, still half clinging to my swollen foot. The ants were back and they were angry. They were avenging their angry queen and they suddenly seemed everywhere. I was the misunderstood Frankenstein and they were the angry villagers, carrying lit torches with a crazy glint their little eye. Any minute I expected to hear chants of “kill the beast!” in little high-pitched ant voices. I ran into my room and, making sure my door was shut and tightly locked, found my slipper boots. My slippers came halfway up my calf and were covered in pink fur. They were uncomfortably hot and made me walk like the un-dead stitched-together man himself, but perfect for keeping the ants at bay.

I found my Windex and charged into the kitchen, yelling war cries and blindly spraying in all directions. They started twitching all together among yesterday’s dead bodies. I felt barbaric, but I also felt such a rush of power. I sprayed all corners of the inside of my house. I turned on all the lights and slowly walked around searching for a stray that left the pack. But I knew no matter how much I made my carpet blue, they’d keep coming back.
At this point, when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t darkness that I saw, but millions of ants. Every time I walked into a room, I scanned the floor for ants. The worst part was that I always found at least one everywhere I looked. It was time to take real action and get professional help at Lowe’s Hardware.

I drove to Lowe’s feeling slightly defeated, but happy that the intruders would finally be out of my not-so-humble abode. I walked over to the insect killing isle and started to read labels. I had no idea there were so many ways to kill ants. I was in heaven.
Just then a young boy wearing a Lowe’s uniform and a nametag at just read “Ask Me,” popped his head around the corner and asked, “Need any help, Miss?”
I looked at him and raised one eyebrow, “Do ants have legs?” I replied. He shuffled his feet around a little and cocked his head to the side.

“I don’t know, Miss, I just work here,” he said.

I told him I was looking for something that would bring complete ant-Armageddon to my home. The Lowe’s worker didn’t seem phased by my taste for death as I’m sure he had encountered ones like me that had come before. I didn’t know where to begin. All of the methods for extermination seemed appropriate and satisfactory. The young worker put his hands on his hips and looked at me, waiting for instructions.

I glared at him, “Get me a cart.”

I purchased 10 ant “hotels”, 4 tubes of ant gel to line the outside of my house, and 2 cans of spray that attracts them then kills them all off.

Upon returning home, I crashed through my garage door, feeling like Jack Nicolson in “The Shining.”

I ripped open the boxes of death traps and placed them strategically around and inside my house, making it a concentration camp for ants. It wouldn’t be long now before they marched in, but won’t march out. I felt like rejoicing and having a pizza delivered to my house so I could eat it in front of them and leave the crusts on the floor. I wanted to have a picnic on my kitchen floor and spill juice, watermelon, and hotdog buns all over it. I only wished that I knew the new number of my ex-neighbors’ new house so I could call to tell them I’m in the process of avenging them.

Before making myself dinner that night, I went to look out at the sprayed-on pieces of cardboard I had put on my back deck. It was black with ants. I couldn’t help but laugh in my reflection in the window. Am I still paranoid about ants being on floors in my house? Well, yes, I am. But I feel reassured knowing that the ant-concentration camp I built will prevent me ever seeing another ant again.