Mr.+Morgan

This piece was a project for the second semester of English and we had to create a story based on our life, but in a fictional setting. We also working with a class in the mainland.

Mr. Morgan

Arms like metal, legs like steel, all muscles prime and fit. That's my body. You can call me the Asian Superman, if you want. I am super good at all sports imaginable. If you want to challenge me, I will take you down. I'm not afraid of anyone.

The name's Chris and I am seventeen now. I used to talk and sound like that when I was fifteen and just starting out high school. I was cocky and ignorant. I regret the things I have done and would take it back for anything. So here's my story. I awake to hear my sister yelling at me because I ate her favorite dessert last night. It was a gloomy Monday morning and I didn't really want to go to school, but I had to, or else my mother would… Well, let's not get into that. Anyways, I ate breakfast and got ready for school. As I arrived at school, I was pretty much half-asleep. I don't even remember half the day, but somehow I remembered to go to all my classes. As a freshman, you feel a little scared and intimidated by the upperclassmen but when I'm tired, I'm not affected by anything, which is not always the best trait to have. I am not very smart, mostly because I don't really try. I probably could be one of the smartest people in my class, but I choose not to. I'd rather eat and play around during breaks than do homework. That's why it's called homework. It's meant to be done at home. My friends are sometimes like that. Speaking of my friends, there is this one guy whose name is Nick and he is kind of slow at times, no offence. He is super funny and cracks jokes about everything. Also, he never does his homework, fails his tests and quizzes and still manages to get B's in most of his classes; it's amazing. Don't worry; my other friends aren't like that. They are mostly "Average Joes." We just get average, and sometimes exceptional grades. About nine or ten people in our class are considered the "popular group." It really annoys me how people consider them popular when they don't even know them, it doesn't make sense. Anyway, they are a bunch of people that were my friends once upon a time then met new people and started doing things differently. I still say "Hi" to them once in a while but I don't really hang out with them. Most of the guys in their group are jocks and are really good at certain sport(s). Sometimes I just want to be like them and have a lot of friends and just be gifted with the skill of a sport. Today was just a normal day and I went home right after school. I did most of my homework before dinner and then had time to relax during dinner. I normally rush dinner since I'm always procrastinating with homework, papers, tests, and projects. So after my delicious dinner provided by my mom and dad, I went on my laptop and went on AIM. AIM is just an instant messaging service so you can talk to your friends and stuff like that. I logged on an all of a sudden, one of the popular guy's, Ryan, said "Hey." I said "Hey," back and from there we talked for about an hour. I was pretty surprised that he was talking to me and he said that he was bored and wanted to talk to his old friend and reconnect the friendship. I agreed and from then on, we were friends like old times. It was a nice feeling, knowing that you have a friend. Especially if you reconnected with an old buddy, that leaves an even better feeling. So the next day, school was much more exciting. I got to talk to Ryan more and he introduced me to some of his friends from the "popular group." And day-by-day, I began to stray away from my group to Ryan's friends. This was the point in my life when I just wanted to pause and hit rewind. This was the turning point to what I became and what I regret. Like I said before, most of Ryan's friends are jocks, they are obviously fit and incredibly strong. So, this is why I was determined to go to the weight room as much as I could. I guess I did this to both fit in, as well as look good. From that day on, until about four months, I was almost exact body type with my "new" friends. In that time, my "old" friends already knew where I was headed and decided not to have anything to do with me. At the time, I really didn't care about them, and I would be a jerk to them, which was a very ignorant thing to do. Everything was going wrong for me but I was too cocky to even see it happening. My grades were extremely bad, my relationship with my family was not the greatest, and I was always getting into trouble because of my ego and pride. My friends were controlling my life and they didn't care about how it affected me at that point, just like how I didn't care about my old friends. Funny thing was, was that I was so dumb to even see it at the time. I remember this one conversation I had with this guy before I started becoming all cocky and stuff, and we were talking about some sort of concert on a school night. "So, you goin' to the concert?" He asked. "Nah, I'm grounded. My parents are gonna kill me if I snuck out," I replied. "Come on, you can do it. It will only be for like 2 hours, tops," He insisted. "No, man, I can't, do you know what would happen to me if they found out that I snuck out or if they caught me in the act?" "Actually, no, I don't, but come on, everybody's going and you will be the laughing stock if you don't go, especially this concert." "Fine, I'll go." So in the end, I did get caught on the way home and was grounded for three months. This was really bad and plus, the concert sucked so much. I don't even see how they enjoyed it. So boring. For another month into my grounding, my parents and I had several conversations about my bad doings. I kept giving them attitude and they always kept yelling at me. It got to a point where they were going to send me to a detention center. I felt a little bit of guilt, as I lied on my bed just about to go to sleep, but being the person I was at the time, I just shrugged it away and went to sleep. The next day was weird. I walked down the hallway to my locker and saw my old friends on a table laughing and having fun. I clenched my hand into a fist for no reason and just ignored them. Deep down inside I was feeling left out and mad at myself. I didn't realize it at the time, but I really missed them. My next class was English and I had a few of my current friends in it. As usual, we would fool around and gossip about people. But that day, I was out of it and was just sitting there, actually listening to the teacher teach the grammar rules. When my friends saw me taking notes instead of hanging out with them, one of them said, "Hey, what the heck are you doing? You're supposed to be fooling around like us. Who cares about school, it's just a waste of time." But I didn't pay attention to them and just did my work. Shortly after class, I decided to go to the counselor's office and have a talk. I looked at the nameplate on the door, it said, "Mr. Morgan." So I opened the door to see Mr. Morgan sitting there writing something. "Hi, Mr. Morgan, do you have a moment?" "Of course I do, it's my job to be free to talk when people have problems." He calmly replied. "Okay, thanks, I have a friend issue, this guy named-" "You don't have to say names in this conversation, if it makes you feel better." He told me. "Oh, okay, so anyway, I used to hang out with this group of guys…" That conversation lasted a long time and when it was over, Mr. Morgan wrote a letter to all my teachers telling me that I didn't skip class, and that I was with him the whole time. That made me happy. So every day, for about thirty minutes, I would go in Mr. Morgan's office and just talk to him about my feelings and he would tell me what I should to do help me with problems and everything. He always had a smile on his face. That was something I noticed all the time. Slowly, I could start to see the "light through all the darkness." However, the "popular group" saw that I was changing into a different person and questioned me. I told them the truth and how I go to Mr. Morgan's office everyday to talk and boy, were they pissed. They said they hated Mr. Morgan and he would always catch them doing bad stuff. So this was the time I grew some balls and defended him. For I don't know how long, we were in an all out fight (with words of course). Just screaming and yelling at each other like madmen. And at the end of it all, we finally went our separate ways and decided never to talk to each other again. I was both happy and relieved. Happy at the fact that I could be the person I was and relieved that I am "healed from the virus." When I came home happy and all smiles, my parents questioned me and I told them everything. That night was the happiest I've ever been. My parents were so proud of how much I grew from this experience. However, the problem was not completely fixed. The next thing was my friendship with my "old" friends. The next morning, I walked up to their table in the hallway and said hey. They just looked at me and said with an spicy attitude, "What are you doing here?" I could understand why they weren't all happy to talk to me, seeing as how I treated them while I was hanging out with the "popular group." But I wouldn't give up until we were all good friends again. It took a while just to explain the situation and took about five minutes to say how much I missed them and if they would accept me back as their friend. They said they would think about it and tell me the next day. That was an okay answer in my opinion. I probably would take some time to think it over if my "old" friend was a big jerk to me and all of a sudden decides to ask for your forgiveness. So that day was a long one, emotionally. It's like asking a girl out and she says that she will think about it. The next morning I was not entirely sure I wanted to hear the news. I walked to their table, and they weren't there! I wait for about five minutes and they are still not there. I decide to wait another five minutes and finally they show up. They just talked for ten minutes about how they thought long and hard about what I said. Finally they made up their mind. They said that they would forgive me on one condition. That I would take them to the weight room and teach them how to get "physically bigger." I was speechless. It made me laugh, loud, and I chuckled "Yes, of course." From that day on, everything was back to normal and I'm still friends with all of them. I do regret what I did to them in the past but yet, I don't because if I didn't do it, I wouldn't see how great my friends are to me and that I should never do something to fit in with "popular" people. People decide who's popular and it's up to you to ignore that and just focus on what's important. So I'm telling you now to avoid that situation if possible.

Thanks, Mr. Morgan.

1. I think the big ideas of English 1 in this piece is voice, creativity, and depth. In this piece, i tried to incorperate as much of my voice in it as possible. It was mostly how I would talk. Creativity because I used what I do in school and how I act around my friends and did a 180 on the story. Lastly, depth because it tells a deep, meaningful story in my eyes as the writer. Even though this isn't the subject on what I would like to write on, it was a challenging, yet worth-while project that I enjoyed overall. My ideas have not changed since I wrote the piece and I doubt it ever will.

4. If I compare it to my final project for last year, "Speechless," then i see many differences and very little similarities. I think this is because of what I have learned in English 1 from first semester to second semester and how comfortable I have become. One similarity I noticed was that my main focal point was the issue of voice in my writing. And some of the differences I noticed was the many different writing styles i chose and how i added more quotes than the other, etc. I believe my thinking has improved but I also think that if I enjoy writing about a certain topic, then I will write better, but that may not always be the case. It might be that I just worked harder on a piece because a teacher told me to.