12.22.06
A Life That Was And Will Never Be Again
A short story.
06.01.06
Midnight Walk
Off in the darkness I walked alone.
I listened intently to The Sound of Silence,
Hoping for a call on the cell
To end the lonely walk,
And save me from my myself.
My mind wandered to memories
Of recent walks and discussions.
Some humorous… (an illusion lumberjack mech suit tree pop machine is me!)
Some serious… (what will happen now?)
Some interesting and fun… (“I really like that house!”)
I toiled in my mind for three miles,
Walking through the mist of sprinklers.
Finally my mind was clear like the night sky.
Feelings have, at last, been shoved aside,
Taking a back seat to life.
It was beautiful night.
11.14.05
Creative Writing – Poetry Activity
Today in Creative Writing we did perhaps one of the best writing activities (in my opinion). He gave us two topics (which most people combined, actually) and we did a free write. For the unknowing, a free write is a period of writing where you list every thought that comes to your mind about the topic (unless there is no topic) for a period of time. You don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, format or anything. You just get them down on paper (er… screen).
After the free write, we seperated it and used words we wrote to make up some poem. Since this was a free write, no ones poem rhymed, and it was basically all free verse. I was one of six people to get more than a page for both the poem and free write (in reality, I got three for the poem, the free write is up in the air (my computer at school sucks!)).
The topic I picked was “I remember”. I use the phrase a few times in the poem, and it appears in the title itself. Overall, I made very very few changes to my words, just like Mr. Wilkinson said. I cut out a few irrelevant sentences and bam, there, with formatting, punctuaion and various breaks, was a free verse poem I never could have written any other way. Quite amazing.
You may or may not like it, but I found it to be an eye opener for myself. It raises some good questions, and every word on the page flowed from my thoughts over the period of eight minutes. Crazy.
The poem can be found here: http://www.nick-cash.com/wp/2005/11/14/i-remember-long-ago/
09.08.05
Journal 9 & 10 – The Oregon Trail
The water in the river was ice cold. I was immediately swept away in the current. Luckily I had the rope around me so my fellow trail members could pull me. Surely it wasn’t my fault my wagon got stuck in the river. Now I had nothing…
I had written yet another story for another scenario. This was sure to get me another five! What a way to make crossing a river exciting. I did happen to have a feeling that, in actuality, my “family” would not be so fortunate.
This class project was not so exciting. Our whole class was taking part in a charting game. We used trivia, writings, and other means to establish points for our wagon’s, which then affected how everything went.
As it turns out, I was unlucky. I got high marks, but the random aspect of things killed my possibility to succeed in this game. Pulling diseases out of a hat at random so they inflict your wagon hardly seems fair.
I actually found myself grateful for having my entire wagon die. The father on Mike’s wagon had diarrhea that never went away, which counted against his score each day. Then there was Andy who had exclaimed, “Why doesn’t my family get a disease? I want one too!” The ignorance of a fifth grader is astounding but fitting. He had no idea what a disease was.
“Wagon team one, you failed to cross the river. This time we’ll shoot baskets to see what happens. Nick, you go first,” my fifth teacher said.
“Alright…” I replied, taking my position marked by the tape on the floor closest to the wastebasket. Why did my fake wagon family’s fate rely on my ability to shoot a paper ball into the wastebasket?
She tossed me the ball, but stopped me before I could toss it. “Wait, you only have three family members?” she asked.
“Yes. The father and son died of disease yesterday, remember?”
“Well, you have to move back ten feet then, since your family is undermined.”
“Ok….”
I took a few steps back, now at the middle piece of tape. Any more and I’d be about half a classroom’s length away from this basket. I don’t think this is ten feet. I got ready to throw the paper ball just as she stopped me again.
“Wait, you only had one ox?” she asked, looking over her notes again.
“Yeah, my other three were stolen by thieves on Wednesday, remember?” I replied. I started moving back some more, heading towards the last piece of tape.
“Well, you, oh, yeah, last piece of tape. Alright, lets go!” she said looking up.
I took up my position. The basket sure was a small target now that I was a great many feet away. The rest of my classmates looked on, hoping I would make it. It was a team effort after all.
My “family” had already died twice before, as I seemed to by a magnet for thieves, disease, spoiling food, and other bad disasters. I swear the real people on the Oregon Trail did not have this many problems. I threw the ball and hit bounced off the rim off the basket. I missed.
“Ok, lets see….” my teacher muttered, consulting some form of chart, graph, or table. She continued, “Uh, Nick, the remaining two people in your family are swept down stream and are unable to be saved.”
I moved out of the way, unaffected by the answer. Not like this was new. However, it might be a new record, as my entire family had bit the dust twice in one week. Of course, so I won’t be left out, the wagon teams will find a lone wagon with my new family inside it tomorrow.
Sitting quietly at my desk, which was pushed to the side of the room to allow for kids to throw the ball, I watched the rest of my wagon team shoot, several missing. Some lost whole wagons; some members of their family, and some lost nothing.
I was the only one to flat out die… again. That makes three. How unlucky can one person be?
06.18.05
The Past, Present, and Future
I wrote this some time ago, late this last school year. I was annoying with a few certain peoples ignorance, like they had an infinite amount of time to do everything, so they could just slack off and whatever. Well, I’m all for slacking and being lazy, unless it impacts my life. I would not dare mess up school. Several of my friends exclaim, “I just don’t try.” Well why not? Afraid you might accomplish something?
Anywho, I’ve reread this and it doesnt really make sense and its definitely not my greatest piece of work, but it happens to be the only one I have exported to HTML currently.
EDIT: Uggg, it got messed up badly somehow. Please ignore screwup’s and misspellings, something is obviously wrong with pico. I’ll fix it when I get back.
http://www.nick-cash.com/pers/writings/past-present-future.htm
Don’t hate it too much 