Fear

As a child I had two big fears-the dark and thunder storms. My story involves both of them in away, but to understand the story a bit better you need a little background info. We live on our family farm , which is about 100 years old. Most of the out buildings are falling down, at the time of the event the barn was still standing. My yard looks extremely creepy in the fall at night once the leaves are off the trees.
I was in fifth grade at the time and it was our first year living in New Richmond. It had to be about mid fall, my dad was at bowling and my brother Pat was at boy scouts. My mom had a girl scout leader's thing that she need to go to. So it was just me at home, up till then someone had always been there with me. My mom was a little worried about leaving me home, mainly because it was getting dark and the whole fact that we're out in the country. Me, wanting to be brave and independent told her I'd be fine. Big mistake, this happened to be my first time staying home alone in our house. Sure I've been in the house alot and you'd think it'd would be fine, but let me tell you that place is different at night. Being scared of the dark I turned on all the lights in the house and went and sat in the living room and watched tv. I noticed it started getting a lot darker outside, I was a little freaked out but just kept watching tv. After awhile I started hearing noises, I told myself relax it's an old house, old houses make noises. Suddenly I heard BANG BANG BANG. I hadn't noticed the wind picking up, and I had no clue what the noise was. I wrapped up in a blanket and sat in the middle of the floor shaking. I wanted to be brave, I kept telling myself it was nothing and turned the volume up on the tv. Suddenly with no warning the storm just let loose. The rain fell, the thunder rolled, and the lighting lit up the sky. I hear BANG BANG BANG again, and the dog was on his feet staring out the window. This really freaked me out, the sky lit up again and I took off toward the kitchen. I dialed my mom's cell number, by the time she answered I was bawling. I told her was scared and was hearing noises. She told me to remain calm and that the noise I was hearing was just the sheet metal ripping off the roof of the barn. She told me to go to the basement if things got worst. I of course refused, out basement is cold, damp and creepy. Its stone and has the lights that are the single bulb with string hanging down, plus theres that whole factor that it's spider infested. So there was no way I was going down there. Instead I went into the room me and brother were sharing at the time (our upstairs wasnt finished yet), my dad had the sheetrock in front of the extra door so I grabbed so blankets and pillows and made a little hideout for myself right there. I sat behind that sheetrock untill my mom got home. When she found me I was still crying and shaking. After this whole experience I learned that the dark and storms aren't that scary. Looking back now I find it rather funny that I got that scared that bad. But hey it's just a fear I had a kid and i grew out of it.
In a sense I can understand how the boys feel on the island. It can be a bit frighting to be alone in place that you don't know much about especially at night. And hearing sounds and seeing things that you don't know what they are, can be pretty frighting. I know how it feels, I just had something simlar happen with a noise saturday night. I heard something out in the field and instead of figureing out what it was, I took off running toward the house. All i can say it that you just need to be strong and remain calm, things aren't always what they seem. The twig snapping could just be a bunny, the glow in the trees. lighting bugs. As Jack said "The thing is-fear can't hurt you any more than a dream"(82).

Technology

Technology has helped me alot in english. In class we had to create wiki page. At first it was a little hard for me to do, but once it was explained it made things so much easier. When we did group work we were able to get a hold of eachother through it and discuss things. When one of our group memebers was sick, we were able to keep her up to date with wiki, it made things easier for her. Over all i feel that technology has made things for english and other class too, so much easier. Things get done alot faster.

I believe it was about a week or two before Christmas break my sophomore year. It started when this girl, lets call her B, decided to turn my life in to a living hell. B was once my friend and sadly two of my other friends, let’s call them A & C, decided to follow her and believe her. I had been putting up with B’s crap for a while now, and it was getting to the point where I couldn’t stand it any more. She and A would always leave me behind, and she just treated me horribly whenever she felt sad or mad, or get in trouble or something bad happened. Anyway, it was after band and we were heading to lunch and I stopped to talk to one of my friends about our duet and asked B & A to wait. Of course they just kept walking, laughing the whole way. I was pretty pissed about them not waiting, when earlier B had freaked out at me for not waiting for her to go to geometry. When I got to lunch I sat my tray down and it took them a few minutes to realize I was there. B looks up and goes “Oh there you are”, I looked at her and said “Well I told you I need to talk to someone and asked you to wait.” She looks up and me and smiles her little daggered grin and said, “Oh we didn’t hear you.” That did it for me; I finished my lunch in silence and then just walked away. It didn’t take long for B to realize that I was mad. So she started tell A& C lies about me. This went on for like a week, and then that Friday in band C came up to me and just ripped into me about something that I never said or did. I was so shocked and mad that I started crying. When I looked up I saw B, smiling her little grin. At lunch she came up and apologized to me and told me all this crap about how I was like a sister to her and she couldn’t tell me when I was being annoying, blah blah blah. And of course I being me forgave her. I use to let people push me around and B knew that. Well things were going fine.... for awhile, and then B started pulling the same stuff again. So knowing what had happened lasted time, I simply just didn’t sit with them at lunch. B of course started telling C stuff about me again and sadly C believed her. I did realize though after two days that the reason why we were fighting was dumb. So I wrote them all a note saying I wasn’t mad at them and I was done, I wasn’t going to fight. B tore it up and was telling everyone that it was mean and they should have read it. In the lunch line I’d hear say “Oh C I’m sorry for DITCHING you, I didn’t mean it,” and she’d look right at me and smile that little grin. Things like this continued for the rest of the year. Every time I’d go to my locker I’d get a look, every time I’d talk to a friend she would interrupted, I couldn’t even walk down the hallway without being glared at by either B, A or C. Things were said behind my back. It got to a point where I didn’t want to go to school anymore, I had loved school. I knew that everyday she’d be there waiting to attack me, waiting to see if I’ll break, waiting to annoy\me. I would come home everyday in tears. My parents told me to ignore it and stay away from them, but it was hard. Some how though I was able to ignore it, I realized that I didn’t need her as a friend. I’m usually a very happy up beat person but during this I got super depressed, but I did eventually get over that and I was myself again. Of course when B saw this, she was mad, so she’d try to do whatever she could to make me mad. During the summer C came up to me and said that she couldn’t stand not talking to me, so we worked things out. B wasn’t too happy about this, about the beginning of this school year, B decided to turn things around, she started in on C and C saw that dagger smile and realize that she had been wrong and that she should have listened to me. So C came and apologized to me realizing what I’ve been going through. I found some things out. B still talks about me behind my back, when someone ticks her off she says they are just like me and oh, she calls me the B. word besides that. Now she doesn’t just smile her dagger smile at me, but also at C. I just don’t understand why this has gone on for a year now; maybe the daggers in her smile are just too sharp, who knew. All I know is that, I let those daggers stab me before, but they won’t now, I won’t let them.