Week 28 at Whitney Young

This week was pretty nice. I wasn't too stressed with homework or tests or anything. But, I was really tired. I would be sleepy in class, and I would fall asleep right when I got home. Maybe I have post traumatic swimming disorder. I kind of miss it, but I love having more free time. We also had a four day week this week and next week. But, it's a bad thing because CPS is affecting the learning of its students. Hopefully it gets better.

Week 27 at Whitney Young

This week was pretty nice. Since swimming is over, I have a lot of free time. I have more time to sleep, more time to spend time with friends, and more time to spend time with myself. It's great. This week wasn't too bad with tests. Thursday and Friday were filled with tests. But, there wasn't too much homework or studying to do. Overall, this week was pretty nice.

Week 26 at Whitney Young

This week was pretty nice. I only had to go to school Monday through Thursday; so it was pretty nice. I wasn't too stressed out this week. But, I had some hefty homework on some days of the week. But, luckily, I didn't have very many tests this week either. This week was also pretty exciting because Friday through Sunday, I'm competing at the Illinois Swimming Age Group State Championship. I'm swimming three events Friday, and two Saturday and Sunday. And then, Monday, I'm done with swimming for this season!

Dialogue / Short Story - Frozen

Julian Green

Period 4

3/10/16

Dialogue / Short Story - Frozen

    It was Saturday night; cloudy and freezing for late May in Dell. All of the trees stood in place, shocked by the cold. Hope Collins, a sophomore at Soft Technical High School, stood amongst the trees. Her eyes were bloodshot and her fingers and clothes were blood covered. She was frozen.

    It all started during fifth period. Hope was a straight-A student at Soft Tech. She was taking mostly college courses and ranked in the top five in her class. She was currently in AP Chemistry talking to Vanessa Stone, a friend of ten years.

“So you’re still coming over right?” Vanessa whispered.

    “Yeah, I think so. I can’t wait to try it tonight,” Hope replied in a more quiet tone than Vanessa.

    “Good. I can’t wait.”

    Vanessa turned her head back to the board. She had a large smirk on her face. She couldn’t wait for the evening.

    The bell rang for eighth period. Hope and Vanessa planned to meet across the street at a restaurant named Fella’s to get a snack before their fun night.

“You have money, right?” Hope asked.

    “Dang it. I left it on my dresser at home. I was a little too excited to pack the stuff, that I forgot about my money,” Vanessa replied angrily.

    “Don’t worry. I got you,” Hope said with a close-eyed smirk on her face.

    Hope and Vanessa ate until about four thirty. They didn’t want to have fun on an empty stomach. And after fully stuffing themselves, they headed home. Vanessa’s car was parked out front, and her house was only five minutes away, so they got there in no time.

    As soon as they got to Vanessa’s house, they ran inside, closed all of the blinds, ran up to Vanessa’s room, and shut the door. Vanessa then turned on the new untitled unmastered album by Kendrick Lamar to cool the mood. Her parents were on a business trip for work, so the girls didn’t have to worry about any interruptions.

    Hope pulled a black bag out of her backpack. She was eager and ready to get started.

She opened the bag and said, “Here it is. Don’t they smell good?” Hope held up two bags full of the newest drug, CTX.

“Just like cotton candy! And look what I bought to make this night even more fun,” Vanessa said as she pulled out two bottles of Coric.

This was the first time that Hope and Vanessa had ever taken drugs and drank alcohol at the same time. After taking three pills each, they were starting to get into it and feel the high. They were dancing around Vanessa’s room while listening to untitled 07 from the album they had been listening to before. After moving and dancing to every single beat of the song, the made their small party even more fun by taking three shots of the Coric each. They were both absolutely out of it.

Vanessa was feeling as light as a pillow and as nimble as a gymnast. Hope was experiencing every second in slow motion and even moved like a sloth. Vanessa was so energetic and she wanted to do so many things while feelings this rush of energy. She came up with an idea.

Vanessa ran up to Hope and shouted, “Do you think that I could tightrope walk my banister without falling?!”

Hope answered, “Omg totally. You could probably do backflips and everything.”

So, the girls ran out into the hallway and Hope watched Vanessa climb onto the banister.

“Alright! Here I go!” Hope screamed at the top of her lungs. She tried walking on the banister with her pink Rihanna stance socks, but two steps into it, she slipped and fell off of the banister onto the ground. She did about three backflips in the air before falling from about thirty feet onto the ground head first.

Hope watched the entire thing, and said, “Cool.” She then walked back into Vanessa’s room. Her body started tearing itself down, and she passed out on her bed for ten hours.

Hope woke up screaming from her deep, drug induced sleep. She had a giant headache, so she went to go get some water. She reached the top step and froze. She saw Vanessa’s body lying on the ground. She wasn’t breathing and she was covered in blood with one of her arms and legs bent backwards.

Hope immediately started to scream, “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! What did we do? Why did I let her convince me to do this. I can’t get caught for this. I’d be sent to jail. Wait! I know what to do!”

Hope ran over to Vanessa’s body. She covered her mouth and closed her eyes while she pulled her into the basement. Hope placed her gently in the closet that seemed like no one had used it for fifty years. Hope had been hysterically crying while she tried to cover up the death of her friend. She ran to the kitchen, tried to clean up any blood that she had tracked throughout the house, and tossed the towel into the closet with Vanessa. She was terrified of what would happen next, so she grabbed Vanessa’s keys and ran to her car.

Hope drove to the farthest edges of the town. She was still crying. But no tears were coming out. She felt terrible and wanted to just end it all right now. So, she stopped in the forest preserve right in front of the town border. She took the black bag and ran as far away from the road that she could. She took eight more pills and stood waiting to die amongst the trees. She was frozen.

Week 25 at Whitney Young

This week sucked a lot. I was swarmed with homework and difficult swim practices. I had barely six and a half hours of sleep everyday. I spent all day stressed and having the want to sleep. It was terrible. Hopefully next week will be less stressul and more calm. Because my life hurts.

Samia Black and Asia Brown Dialogue

Julian Green

Period 4

3/3/16

Dialogue

    Socially “woke” (up to date/current) African American high school classmates, Samia Black and Asia Brown discuss current issues in society that directly affect African Americans in their ethnic studies class.

    “Why are African Americans treated so poorly in American society?” Samia asked with a hope for an answer.

    Asia raised her hand and reached for the ceiling until Samia called on her. She answered, “That’s a great question. Maybe the white supremacists or racist ‘protectors’ of the citizens of our country could answer as to why the color of our skin is a few shades darker than theirs.”

“Ugh, that would be great. And since I’m taking AP Biology this year, I’m sure that they’d loved to understand the science behind how skin color works,” Samia sarcastically replied.

“Oh! I have another question,” Asia eagerly shouted.

“Well, what is it?” Samia said intrigued by Asia's want to ask more.

“Why is it that people of the film industry seem to hate having black actors/actresses play suitable roles in movies? Like Zoe Saldana in that new Nina Simone biopic….”

“Oh! And why do so many movies with a black female/male lead role portray some type of stereotype and/or racially motivated topic? Why can’t there just be regular movies with black people as the star? Why couldn’t Katniss from the Hunger Games be black? Why couldn’t Idris Elba be James Bond? Why have only 44 black people won an oscar?” Samia added on.

“They don’t want to see us succeed,” Asia replied in her DJ Khaled voice. “The key to success is having more black directors/producers who have the same ideas as us and want to voice their opinions in the form of a bestselling movie.”

“Like Shonda Rhimes? She’s been killing it with How To Get Away With Murder.”

“OMG, right? Maybe if we had more people like her to write and more actresses like Viola Davis, then we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“Well, at least it’s still Black History Month,” Samia said to bring light to the terrible things that black people have experienced in the past few months.

“Yeah, and at least I still have a few more days to educate these fools in my Twitter mentions on the history of blackface and why being a feminist and black lives matter activist is important, while at the same time, living my carefree, shea butter filled life.”

Class claps.

“You got that right,” Samia replied while clapping with her class.

“And at least the black community stands side by side in situations like this. It would really suck if we had no support in a time where the unlawful killing of us isn't deserving the rightful justice that it needs.”