<p>We had to write three drafts of various prompts for AP Lang, and choose one to make nice/develop. Of course, I was an idiot and made two nice ones, so now I don’t know which one to use.</p>
<p>Essay 1: The Things I Carry (The Things They Carried, Tim O’ Brien, prompt)</p>
<p>My petite frame carries sixteen years and five months and two weeks of life. Life filled with knowledge and ideas and memories—too many to carry alone. My beloved possessions liberate me from the inevitable burden of these precious experiences. </p>
<p>The first six years of my life are carried by the worn teddy bear perched upon my bedside table. The matted fur of his left foot tells of the time that I attempted to take Winnie into the pool for a swim (for future reference, teddy bears do not like to swim). Winnie carries memories of the first day of kindergarten, as I feverishly held on to him while he shielded me from menacing teachers who towered above me in their high-heeled shoes. But the experiences Winnie carries do not extend past second grade, when I received my first doll as a birthday present. </p>
<p>With her cosseted golden blonde locks and preposterously proportioned plastic figure, Barbie carries reminiscences of girlhood dreams: wi****ll (W I S T F U L L, idk why it edits that!?) memories of makeup and mansions and majestically handsome princes. The frayed edges of her electric blue skirt expose my originality, innovation, and love of fashion—or perhaps merely my love of scissors. Barbie carries memories of best friends and play-dates and birthday parties. But after the fifth grade it was quite clear that Barbie was no longer “cool;” and so she sits on a shelf in the corner of my room, still in her electric blue skirt, to collect dust and lose the glamour and allure she once epitomized. </p>
<p>Middle school meant new people, experiences, and memories, all of which are held by a one-inch binder. As I prepared for the first day of sixth grade, I decorated my binder with photos and colors and glitter. Along with my anticipation and apprehension, this binder carries the numerous compliments it received on that first day of middle school—from teachers and friends and those whom I had never met before. It carries countless bits of paper: homework notes, study notes, friendly notes, gossipy notes. This binder carries the chaos of resettlement; it was the only constant in the whirl of open houses and real-estate agents and for-sale signs that characterized the move from New Jersey to New York before eighth grade. Several more compliments were bestowed upon the binder as I was forced to meet new people and make new friends. More pictures and colors and glitter were added—an embodiment of my development as an individual. But high school arrived with startling haste.
For the past two and a half years I have carried a tote bag both in and out of school. The epitome of fashionable functionality, its bright red leather enhances any outfit while simultaneously carrying two binders and three notebooks and five folders and a pencil case containing four pens and one pencil—the four others having furtively vanished. In its pockets are seven pennies, a nickel, two pots of lip balm, and three tubes of lip-gloss—although my lips remain irrevocably chapped. My bag carries worry and anxiety: an AP Physics review book and a math review sheet and twenty index cards to study for a French vocabulary test. It holds my sketchbook—my art and ideas and creativity; it carries a music CD that has slipped into my AP Economics folder: a copy of a new album that I adore, burned for a friend who asked me for the songs after growing tired of simply listening to me talk about them incessantly. The tote carries the chaos that is junior year in the coffee stains that pattern its inner lining after my Starbucks Mocha Frappachino leaked on one of several frenzied mornings. Littered with movie ticket stubs and store receipts and gum wrappers galore, my bag holds memories of fun and friends. Somewhere therein lays my cell phone—talking and texting: connection and communication. In all that it carries, this bag embodies much of the past few years of my life: the decisions and knowledge and memories and experiences that define my teenage years. </p>
<p>Stuffed animals, dolls, binders, and bags. These ostensibly ordinary objects carry my past; they carry sixteen years of laughter, elation, tears, sorrow, appreciation, regret, excitement, anxiety. I am left with merely one thing to carry: the future. </p>
<p>Essay 2: En Pointe (shoe prompt, story based on a shoe you picked during class)</p>
<p>The charming red brick Colonial on the corner of Oak Street and Pine Road with a white picket fence and freshly mowed lawn exuded an aura of tranquility, yet there seemed to be something missing. For the past four years the rich aroma of a mother’s baking, sweetened with affection and warmed with kindness, ceased to epitomize January afternoons, and the sweet hum of The Nutcracker no longer resonated through the carpeted halls in the evenings. Mother’s Day brought tears rather than flowers and Christmas was conspicuously more reserved. Isabelle saw her mother’s smiling face, chestnut brown locks framing her flawless olive complexion, in the photographs that filled her home, but these were incapable of consoling her. When she longed for her mother, Isabelle did not turn to these photographs; instead, she receded to her room, her private enclave.</p>
<p>Below her four-post bed was a loose floorboard, which—with a bit of choreography—could be moved to expose a small emerald green box. It was plain: not adorned with lace or sequins or photos or glitter, as one might expect of a secret package; but this ostensibly insignificant box sheltered her mother’s most prized possession: a pair of pink satin toe shoes. The soft, silky satin slides gracefully through Isabelle’s fingers as she carefully extracts them from their box, reminiscent of her mother’s unsurpassed elegance as a prima ballerina. The tattered toes of the slippers were accompanied soles that, once a pristine hue of cream, were gray and visibly worn —evidence of dedication and diligence. As she clutched the slippers close to her chest, Isabelle tightly shut her eyes and dreamt of her mother. She recollected stories she had been told, her mother attempting to discreetly wipe the tears that gently rolled from her tired eyes as she reminisced of her glory days, performing world-class ballets for massive audiences. </p>
<p>Isabelle imagined having the courage to stand in the spotlight before thousands of watchful eyes. She imagined what it would feel like to be a true ballerina—her mother claimed that dancing was like floating through the air. Isabelle had never attempted ballet. She preferred dirt and “real sports” to polished wood floors and dancing. When her mother had once suggested a ballet class she threw a tantrum—stomping and shouting and throwing her hands about in fury. The notion of dance was immediately dismissed and Isabelle contentedly continued with her tomboyish ways. But as she held her mother’s slippers in her hands, she wondered what it would be like to dance. What if it was not so bad after all? What if she could float through the air, just like her mother had once described to her with such passion? Driven by her voracious curiosity, Isabelle resolved to initiate the topic of possible ballet classes over dinner. Satisfied with her plan, Isabelle carefully placed the exquisite satin slippers back into their box and underneath the floorboard. </p>
<p>I think that Essay 1 is a better piece, much better edited and everything. But Essay 2 has more sensory details and nice language, etc. Idk which would be better to submit as the final one to class.
I NEED TO CHOOSE BEFORE TOMMORROW! =(</p>