As this is my last post of the school year and possibly the last on my blog, I would like to thank the people who helped me do this, my teachers. Seriously, had it not been for them I would have never done this. I would also like to thank my friend Katie who makes sure I keep writing on my other blogs too. She makes sure I never quit writing, and that's a very good thing. So I say thank you to all of you who help me along the way.

This is a book I wrote for English class, our audience was 8 to 10 year olds.

Distracted Driving Speech

            It may be a bad habit, but it’s a habit we all need to break. What is this horrid habit? Is it chewing you fingernails or tobacco use? No it’s not; it’s distracted driving. No matter what it is that distracts you from the wheel, you need to find a way to make sure that it doesn’t distract you again. In the article “Talking and Texting While Driving: A Look at Regulating Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel”, Shannon Noder gives a perfect example of this happening to you. There is a car swerving in between lanes on the highway in front of you. Your first guess is that there is a drunken driver behind the wheel. When you go to pass them you happen to glance out the passenger window and see that the driver isn’t drunk, but deep in conversation with someone on their cell phone. You personally may be repulsed at the driver’s lack of attention towards the road, but then you realize that you sometimes chat on the phone while driving. You may use a double standard in your mind to justify this to yourself, while in truth it is unjustifiable.

            Chances are you are one of the eighty-five percent of Americans who happen to use your cell phone behind the wheel, but even if you aren’t, you probably have driven while distracted before. Although distracted driving is highly prevalent in teens, many adults drive distracted, too. Whether it’s adjusting a car mirror, putting on make-up, driving while drowsy, and/or many of the other types of driving distractions, the danger of driving is still up to 23 times greater when you are not focused on the road, so push these distractions out the window and watch the road.

            Now I would like to speak to those of you who do use your phone behind the wheel. I’m not judging you because of your bad habits, but habits are made to be broken. In all cases, using your cell phone behind the wheel makes driving 23 times more dangerous. It may seem like an unbelievable statistic, but it is also unbelievably true. It may seem like a harmless task to talk on the phone with a friend while you’re driving, but it is actually about as harmless as sleeping in a cage with a provoked lion. Wake up and get out of the cage! Drive safe and watch the road.

            Distracted driving is becoming more and more common as the technological age progresses. I’m not saying that technology doesn’t have lots of advantages, such as advancing our education systems and making cars safer, but I’m saying that a lot of it doesn’t make sense behind the wheel. Whether it’s a cell phone causing the driver to glance away from the wheel to check up on a text, an iPod dragging attention from the wheel with multiple notifications, or an iPad used to do homework while driving to school, technology is almost always the fierce predator dragging its prey’s attention away from the road until it destroys its prey in one quick crash.

            Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and 80% of all crashes can be linked back to distraction. Drunken driving accidents may be more likely to cause fatalities, but distracted driving accidents are more common and cause at least as many deaths each year. If you want to be another statistic in a book about car crashes that’s your choice, but I know I don’t want to be. Don’t be one of those statistics! Save lives and pay attention to the road!  The carnivore is really hungry, don’t become its prey!

           

 Thomas, Ken. NHTSA Say Driving Distracted To Blame For 80% of Crashes. Transport Topics Publishing Group, 2006

Noder, Shannon. “Talking and Texting While Driving: A Look at Regulating Cell Phone Use Behind the Wheel” Fall 2009: 1-46

Turpin, Zachary. Texting Makes Driving 23 Times More Dangerous. http://bookofodds.com

           

The Certificate to Success

The Certificate to Success

Four seats to my left. Five seats to my right. Three of them are empty. Those they’re are right beside me. The three people who sat in those seats were recently terminated. The stunning silence tortures me taking every ounce of breath out of my lungs. The lady behind the podium announces in that false cheeriness that every teacher has in tense situation that my word is “integer”. A sea of faces stares at me awaiting my answer.   I hesitate a few seconds before I answer. “I-N-T-I-J-E-R” “I’m sorry that’s incorrect” I had been eliminated. The bitter taste of defeat was strong.

 I enter the gymnasium, and a grim-faced little old lady, who honestly looked like a kid in a wig, tells me to go sit down at one of the hundreds of seats in the room. All of the seats are uncomfortable, blue plastic chairs at long white tables. There are two seats to a table, with paper and pencil at every seat. I decide to sit at one of the empty seats at an empty table in the middle of all of them, and soon after, a nervous, young boy comes and joins me at the table.

I was really nervous I didn’t think I had what it would take to get through written rounds. They had to keep going until all of the competitors were knocked out, down to ten. All of these words were EASY!! The only thing I was worried about now was if the judges could read my handwriting. You see, I have notoriously horrible handwriting.

I made it through the written round and was one of the ten finalists. I was excited, but also very nervous because I knew I had tough competition in this deadly fight. They had put out ten chairs in a line, right in the front of the gym. I sat dead center. The awkward, deceitfully, joyful lady announced every word from a podium, and the contender would answer from a microphone that was passed down from contestant to contestant.  Before someone answered a question there would be a deadly silence and a million faces staring at the participant. I watched as three people near me were quickly annihilated and worried that I would be next.

I was next… I didn’t know the word integer and was soon excluded from the competition. The bitter taste of defeat made me want to be sick. Then I saw all of the other competitors cease to remain in the competition. All of them except for one.  After this happened, they called all of the finalists to meet for pictures and to receive our prizes. I didn’t know I was getting a prize!!! I received a sharp edged, thin, blue-tinted, certificate. I now had the sweet taste of victory washing over me. I had been a finalist, and received a certificate. I still have that amazing prize hanging on my wall. The place I keep it most now is in my mind reminding myself that even in a loss; there’s a victory.

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1st and Last Line Poem

Blank Pages

In a small town in Scotland they sell books with one blank page,

It was made a law you see,

To leave that one blank page,

In the middle of every book,

In the middle of every book,

There is nothing,

Just a white page of nothing,

No words,

No letters,

No numbers,

No symbols,

Nothing at all,

I lie,

There are no books in Scotland,

That have only one blank page,

Because I have deceived you,

I take back everything I’ve said

Symbolism

 Mountains

I’ve been traveling 4 roads,

For all 14 years of my existence,

I’ve had lots of obstacles,

Some bigger than others,

But I’ve overcome them,

But now,

But now,

I’ve come upon 4mountains,

4 VERY large mountains,

I can overcome one,

Two,

Maybe even three,

But I might have to leave one road behind,

I might be able to overcome all 4,

But it would take a very looooooong time,

And I don’t know how much time I have,

So which road of life do I take?

I don’t know yet,

But you’ll know when I do.