Writing Feedback / THE PROCESS OF FORGIVENESS, BLAME, AND SELF-ACCEPTANCE [3]

Topic: 2. Discuss an important way in which you have let yourself down. Perhaps you have strayed from your formerly sweet, sincere self and become a bit of a hard-nosed, me-first, competitive type, or have let your morals and values slip a notch or two. Or perhaps you have let someone else down, and though this didn't lead to an argument per se, it has left you feeling that you're not quite the spectacular human being you once thought you were. Write an essay in which you detail the circumstances of your disappointment in yourself, and instruct yourself about getting back on the path to becoming the wonderful, caring, and sensitive person you truly are.

Essay (first draft): Any feedback on grammar or suggestions on things i can put in will be greatly appreciated.

I always considered myself a kind-hearted person. I look out for my friends, and am always there when people need to talk. When I was thirteen I started smoking Marijuana, or as it's more popular name, Weed. I was in Eighth grade living in Port Washington, and none of my friends at school smoked. I used to split my weekend between two groups of friends. I would hang out with my friends from school Friday night and my other friends from Great Neck on Saturday, or vice versa. My friends from Great Neck were freshman in High School. One of them was my best friend. I've known him all my life, and he always made a point to introduce me to his friends as much as possible, so that I would feel comfortable when we all hung out. Once Weed was introduced to him it wasn't long until it became a friend of mine as well. I'll tell you right now, peer pressure is bullshit. No one can pressure you into doing something you don't want to do, if they use force that's something completely different. That wasn't the case for me though. No one ever tried to pressure me into smoking, but it seemed like they were having fun, so why shouldn't I. It wasn't long till it became a regular habit for me and I was smoking every weekend. I never smoked during the school week. I was always scared I'd get caught. I know only on the weekends doesn't sound like a lot these days considering people smoke multiple times everyday, but I assure you, it was enough to change my entire personality.

I thought I was cool. I was the only one I knew from my school who smoked. I got a year head start from everyone else. For a while I stopped hanging out with my friends from school on the weekend. I started going to Great Neck every Friday and Saturday. Parties with drinking and smoking became an every weekend activity for me. I saw myself moving farther away from my friends at school. I was in a downward spiral and couldn't find the brakes. I smoked for about two and a half years, although I don't regret the experiences I had with my friends, I wish I had done them at a more mature age. I stopped caring about school. I wasn't studying, I wasn't doing homework, and cutting class was a regular activity.

Fighting with my parents happened often. I remember my parents suspecting that I was doing drugs, but when they would ask me, I would of course deny deny deny. The innocent, kind-hearted person that I used to be was gone. In Anne Lomott's essay, "My son, the stranger", she says, "What has happened? Who is this person?...computers and our animals" (screen 2). I can relate to that. In the height of my drug use all I cared about was me. I didn't care what my friends from school thought, and I had no interest in what my parents had to say in the matter. When my parents finally confronted me about it, I was on my way out to see my friends. I remember my dad sitting in front of the door, not letting me leave, until I told them the truth. My parents and I argued for awhile until I gave up and told them everything. We sat in the living room for a while talking about the bad choices I've made and it really put my situation into perspective for me. I could continue to smoke and fall further down the rabbit whole, or I could quit and hope to gather whatever was left of my innocence.

I haven't smoked Marijuana in about six years and to tell you the truth, I don't miss it. I've replaced it with music, movies, and friends. In "My son, the stranger", Lamott says, "Everything in the room stirred, dust and light, dander and fluff, and the movement of air, my life still in daily circulation with this guy I have been resting with for so many years" (screen 5). I don't hold anything against my friend for introducing Marijuana to me. I am still best friend with him to this day. We look back at those times with a sense of relief. I think both of us have learned from our experiences and have grown to be better people because of them.

Writing Feedback / Being involved in or witnessed a trouble situation - Essay Help [2]

Assignment- If you have ever been involved in or witnessed a situation in which someone was in trouble, write a narrative essay about the incident. If people failed to help the person in trouble, explain why you think no one acted. If people did act, tell how. Be sure to account for your own actions. Also, make sure the essay contains at least two separate lines of dialogue, and be sure the punctuation follows the rules of the comma and semi-colon.

Essay-

For ten long minutes a group including myself stood around idly while two men fought. It was Bamboozle. An annual rain-or-shine, two-day music festival held in New Jersey. I remember, like it was yesterday. The concert starts around 10 A.M. and usually runs for 12 hours. It was about half way through, when my friend Louie and I decided to walk to another stage where the next band we wanted to see was playing.

When we got to the next stage the previous band was still playing and the crowd was huge. We decided to wait in the back until they finished. About halfway through their last song, I saw a man holding a teenager in a head-lock. He was dragging him towards me from the middle of the mosh pit. The man threw the teenager to the ground and started screaming at him. This drew everyone's attention that was in the general area. Before I knew it there was a circle of people around the two men. The older man was considerably larger. He looked as if he lifted weights everyday, whereas the teenager was scrawny. The teen had no chance, yet he stayed there, and took a beating. No one including myself seemed to try and stop the beating. Five to ten minutes went by and the teenager seemed like he had enough. He appeared as if he was going to give up. Out of nowhere, the man's girlfriend appeared. She started to kick the teenager while he was down. That's when I had enough. I started to head towards the girl kicking the teenager, but security wound up beating me to it (No pun intended).

For the rest of the day, all I thought about was this poor teenager getting beaten in front of a countless amount of people. I felt terrible. Why didn't I react, or get help? I guess, like the rest of the crowd I froze or was consumed by fear. Maybe I was just afraid to get involved. Take your pick. It could have been anyone or all of them. I really don't know. One thing was for sure, I wished I could go back in time and try to stop the fight before it got way out of hand.

Shortly after the fight was broken up, my friend twisted his ankle in a mosh pit. I carried him to the Medical Tent so they could examine him. I saw the teenager there, sitting on a cot. I walked over to him and said "I saw the fight from the beginning, and I'm sorry I didn't do anything to stop it." He accepted my apology and said, "If the situation was in reverse, I probably would have just stood there too." For the time being this made me feel better, but I can honestly say the fact that I didn't do anything still bothers me today. I still picture the woman kicking the teenager while he was down.

I remember in one of my Health classes during High School, we were learning CPR. Our teacher was telling us about how human beings are hesitant when someone is in distress. For instance, if someone is choking, people might be hesitant to perform the Heimlich maneuver or CPR. They feel there is a chance of hurting the person more than they already are. Depending on the person, if you crack a rib trying to perform CPR this could lead to a law suit. This is one reason people stand back and wait for someone else to help. I always looked down upon people like that, but after the incident at Bamboozle, I realized I did the same thing. I stood there and watched a fellow human being in trouble. Since then, I have made myself a promise to help people who are in need.

Writing Feedback / 'Suicide / LA Diaries' - Essay On A Time In My Life I Felt Desperate [NEW]

I have to write an essay for English on a time in my i felt Desperate and relate it to a Book called The LA Diaries. I was wondering if i can get some feedback on my rough draft.

"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" (Phil Donahue). It was a few days before the start of 12th grade and I was desperate. All these negative feelings started rushing in. I started to go into a depression. Not just because of the impending dates of school starting, but because I realized after this year everything changes. My friends would be off to college living their own lives while I hated mine. I was never what you would call a "good" student, mediocre at best. It wasn't that I was a bad student I just had trouble. In The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir, James Brown goes through desperate times as well.

I had been desperate before, desperate to lose weight, desperate to smoke a cigarette, but never this desperate. It got to the point where I wanted to end my life. I paced around my house for hours, racking my brain to find a way to end all of this pain I felt. For every method I came up with, I found three reasons why it would be stupid. I found pills, but quickly realized they would just get me sick and I'd wind up in ICU getting my stomach pumped. I found razorblades but quickly realized that would be too long and painful. It was a good thing I didn't have a gun. I realize that now. I called my friend Ali at around 12 p.m. because I knew if there was anyone who could get me to feel better it was her. She has this thing about her she knows exactly what to say to make me feel better. It's like she knows me better than I know myself. I spent the entire day and night talking to her on the phone, telling her how I felt and the predicament I was in. She told me how much she loved me and how she couldn't live if I died. That just made me even more depressed because what I didn't realize at the time was that there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. She loved me. I was in love with her. The phone calls started to become unbearable it got to the point where I didn't want to talk anymore. I told her I was hanging up and I swore I wasn't going to do anything. It was around 1 in the morning and she didn't believe me. Brown writes, "What I want is a chance, any sort of chance...trying to imagine myself as a man going blind" (8-9). This shows that even though Brown wasn't expecting to rewrite someone else's screenplay in a way that doesn't even make sense, he will do it anyway because he is desperate.

An hour or two later my phone rings. I knew immediately who it was. It was the police telling my parents to check on their child to see if he/she is ok. Somehow the police were called and an ambulance was on its way. I realize now it was Ali who wanted to make sure I was ok. My dad rushed to my room to make sure I was alive and after he saw I was he brought me upstairs. When I got upstairs I saw my mom crying. I had never seen her cry before. I sat down on the couch and waited for the ambulance. It was protocol in situations like mine that even though I didn't harm myself I still needed to be brought to the hospital. When the ambulance came they put me in the back and strapped me down to the stretcher like I was wounded. My parents followed behind. I tried looking out the back windows to see if I recognized where we were going, but soon got lost. Turns out North Shore and LIJ were full so they brought me to Nassau County Medical Center. It felt like I was in a horror movie. They brought me into the dark and dirty basement so I could talk with someone to see if I needed to stay overnight. I said everything I could to make sure that didn't happen. There was no way I was staying there overnight. Brown writes, "I'm not trying to be brave. Or stupid...as if it's a matter of life and death" (50-51). This shows that even though there's a sniper outside shooting out windows he's so desperate to talk to the executive that he doesn't budge.

I went home terrified that night. All I could think about was my moms face when she found out what was going on. There's not a moment that passes where I don't think about that night. I thank god that I have someone like Ali in my life. If the cops weren't called I might have gotten up the courage to go through with it.

Since then I have been going to therapy weekly and haven't been depressed in a long time. Other than that my life is pretty much the same. I came to terms with the fact that my friends would leave and I'd see them over vacation I also try harder in school now. I realized that even though Suicide would have been a permanent solution to my problem, it wasn't the right one. I learned that no matter how down you feel there are always people who love you and want to help you. You just have to look for the help, you can't expect it to come to you.