Well, it wasn’t as if I designed the program to, I used google pages. I signed up to do the Passion Project, a optional 8th grade project. I wanted to do it but I didn’t know where to start. I had two ideas that I knew that I wanted it to be about; figure skating and the environment, but it’d be a fundraiser for something. I decided that the environment would be more important so I worked on that. My first thought was to do a community clean up and talk to people about it, but I had a hectic schedule in February and I didn’t want to get burnt out at the beginning of 2nd semester. It was a month before the date of the clean up when Mr.Mayo told my class that another student was working on a website for Darfur, on google pages. I talked to my advisor about it, and we both agreed to do the website and cancel the clean up.

The website posts my ideas and stand on global awareness, mainly about pollution and sometimes about global warming. I just posted my first post about Earth Day and what you can do on that day, if you don’t know how to help out the cause. There’s also links to Earth Friendly products, how to green things in your life, statistics, and new information on ecosystem crisis. Come check it out, and please add any comments or feedbacks if you have any.

Everything around me looks fuzzy and blurry. Tears are running down my warm cheeks faster than rain drops sliding off windows during a thunderstorm. I’ve never been this mad before, at anyone. My brain is frozen, I can’t think. My tounge is tied, I can’t talk. My temper is rising, I can’t stop it. I explode, and a rush of words come out before my brain has even processed the words. I’m saying things that I’ll regret later, but I’m mad. I can’t shut up, so I turn around and run. The rhythem my feet make against the pavement makes me run faster. Faster! Faster! A voice inside my head screams. I listen to it, so I run faster and faster. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that I had to get away from there. I always run. I’m never brave enough to stand up to my problems. My problems don’t disapear because I go to another place, they catch up to me and are worse. When I feel as if I’d die, because I can’t breathe, I stop. My gray wifebeater is sweat covered, and my blue and black basketball shorts clinging to my legs. I look around. I’m in the middle of no where. I’m standing in a deserted road that’s deathly quiet. Strangely, the street is brightly lit. I turn around and behind be is dark, so I run forward. In 10 minutes, a bright spotlight is being aimed at me. “Who are you?” a familiar voice booms. I look around but I’m blinded by the bright lights. “Who are you?” the voice demands. “B–B-B!” I studder. “B what?” the voice booms again. “B-B-Bailey Eastman. Who are you?” I studder. “It’s six o’clock in the morning, why are you here?” the voice says. “What? The last time I checked it was 8!” I screamed up at the bright light. “How did you get here?” the voice asks. “I–” beep beep beep beep. “What’s that sound?” I wonder. ”You’re g–” beep beep beep. “What’s that–” beep beep beep “It’s –” beep beep beep beep beep beep beep! “B wake up! It’s 7:10! You’re going to be late for school! We’re leaving in twenty minutes!” a very loud, familiar voice says. This doesn’t sound like I’m dreaming, but its the exact same voice. “Bailey get up! E is down in the kitchen waiting for you!” the voice hollers. I feel something hit me. “What?” I wondered. I opened my eyes, and I was blinded my the sunlight flooding my room. I see my mom opening more of my ceiling to floor windows, then it hit me. I was half awake, the blinding light was the sun, and the booming voice was my mom. I touched my cheeks and they were slightly damp, then I look down at my outfit. I’m wearing a… limp gray wifebeater and blue and black basketball shorts?! Was that a dream? Was that real? What’s going on?  

My teacher, Mr.Mayo, told me to go check out his new online magazine, Space, that has writing from kids all over the world. I wasn’t that into reading the poetry that other students were writing, but I did it anyways. They actually turned out to be really interesting how everyone expresses their feelings in different forms of poetry. The four that were submitted on the Space magazine were all free verses, but the stanzas were all completely different. The four poems that I read were written by; Elizabeth, Rebecca, Andrea, and Veronica from Bronx, New York.

My Friends by Elizabeth

Elizabeth wrote a free verse poem, if it isn’t I’m sorry I didn’t see the rhyming pattern, about her best friends; Flordalis, Ashley and Arlene. In the poem she describes the times she hung out with them. She describes the times she has with them; like the things they talk about, laugh about, and how they are around each other. How they will make fun of their friend’s favorite artist, but in a friendly way. She describes how they’re different in their own way, but still are the closest friends can get.             I’m sure that there are others out there that have friendships like that. We all have friends, but it doesn’t mean that they have to be exactly like us. The differences will make us understand more about each other and will be better friends.

Life is like a Rocky Road by Rebecca

“Life is like a rocky road,  That is smooth, but has bumps, But I still choose to keep going”                 That’s an excerpt from Rebecca’s poem. Yes life is definitely rocky; it’s never perfect, it never always goes our way, there’s always something that happens. It can be smooth and perfect for a while, but then something happens because nothing in life is perfect. Just because we have rough patches we still keep going, I’m not going to go into the conversation about the rare groups of people. We don’t always get what we want, but the obstacles in the way will help us in one way or another. It’s interesting how she compared life to a rocky road, how there’s “traffic lights” that “block the road for hours” but “I try to be patient” gets you passed the obstacles.

Sisters by Andrea

Being an only child, I never understood exactly how my friends or cousin felt when they were talking about their siblings. Some loved their siblings to death, while others were always complaingin about how much their siblings are always on the nerves. Andrea obviously loves her sister, and from her words in the poem I’m guessing it’s her older sister. “Sisters protect you when you are in a fight
Sisters make you laugh when you are sad” is a quote from her poem. Andrea and her sister must be close to each other, and are probably each other’s best friend. If Andrea doesn’t have a sister, it must be what she imagines an older sister is like. Either way it’s a nice poem.

Fridays by Veronica

 Veronica describes her Friday; the day that she woke up extra late, stayed home, cleaned her room, and later hung out with her friend. A free verse that summed up her day. Nice. Clear. Being in middle school, it’d be nice to sleep in on a school day, not wake up at 6:30 to get ready. It’d be nice if we had one day off, and were allowed to sleep in and just hang out with friends. But I guess that’s what Saturdays are for, and special three day weekends, oh snow days! She definitely got down what most of us want to do on a Friday, especially a school day, “except the cleaning my room” part.

It was nice to see how teens from different places are putting their thoughts into poems. It’s a nice way of expressing our thoughts without having to write a lot. Because the poems are our thoughts, how we feel and such, whatever is written comes from one point of view. I’d like to hear more poems from students around the world, and see how we are alike and how we are different. 

Just to get this off my mind…

Nowadays all my friends seem to talk about;

Which is the newest shirt in their closet

What their crush did to make them pout

Which mall they’re planning to shop at

I’m sick of seeing girls act that way

They dress to impress the boys

It’s sad to see the youth in us fade away

We’re all growing up, some faster than others

If my friends hear or see me with a certain guy 

Who’s the closest guy friend I’ve ever had

They’ll come close, they don’t even try to spy

They want to catch every word and every action

I have a question no one seems to be able to answer

Why can’t I just be friends with my best guy friend

Without doing something against our better

Judgement, against what we don’t want to do?

My friend is the kind of guy that can make me

Laugh out loud, even when I’m really sad

We could not see each other for months, but be

The best of friends in an hour when we do