PEDS 250 Writing

It was a particularly bad day. I just  got a job in a restaurant. It opened recently, and apparently I'm the first addition to their original  waitresses, so the others saw the chance to gang up on the newcomer. I'm dealing with them as best as I can, trying to stay professional, but it's exhausting. At least it pays well. My new heels broke today. I loathed them, though. They dug into my feet so much I need 2 plasters on each aching spot to walk without crying. What bums me is they're a part of the waitress uniform, and now I have to pay for them. There goes my new dress. Plus I have to walk home in them. It's raining when I did walk home, and I didn't bring my raincoat or an umbrella. So I have to walk, shivering. It's either that or waiting at the restaurant for it to subside. But that means dealing with the other waitresses, not to mention my flirty manager who thinks everyone is interested in him and is somehow set on me as his trophy. I was c...

He's always there. It doesn't matter where we are. The adults can't see him, he's too good at hiding from them. But us kids can. Occasionally he would smile and laugh our way before disappearing. Sometimes he would point towards us and whisper to the air. I might be hallucinating, but I swear I saw something sparkly buzzing around his ear. At night, the wind blows hard, and windows keep opening themselves. The orphanage's headmistress got so annoyed at first, and tried to nail them down. It didn't work, and eventually we got used to it. Once, I woke up at midnight, and saw him flying around the room chasing his shadow. I helped by pinning it with a dart. He looked at me and smiled, and pulled the shadow out of the room. I remember wondering whether my shadow can fly away as well and spent the next day keeping an eye on it. They all thought I was weird. I'm turning 14, and he comes less often. I'm afraid I'll stop being able to see soon. ...

It never occurred to me that I would step over the line. I know this is wrong. My parents would freak out if they ever knew. I can already hear them in my head. "You're better than this. Don't go to that side." But I'm done. Months of restless nights, one after another. All my sweat, blood and tears, sacrificed for nothing. I'm tired of having to always come last. I'm exhausted from having to settle for the bare minimum. There's always someone better. There's always someone else who won over me. And when they're there, I ceased to exist. I am nothing but the smallest obstacle to those I consider my rivals, easily pushed aside. Not anymore. I can handle the heartbreak no longer. I knocked. The door swung to reveal someone who stared, then swung it wider. I guess I do look desperate. As I sat amongst pots, skulls, bird feathers and candles, he took a jar and sprinkled flower petals over me. He then sat down in front of me and smok...

When I was 5, I wanted to be everything. Like, everything . I wanted to be a pianist, ballerina, archaeologist, teacher, doctor, singer, actor, carpenter, gold medalist; you name it. When I was 10, I focused on my most apparent ability: speaking English. So I decided I wanted to be a translator when I grew up.  Failing that, I want to be an author. When I was 15, I realized there's too many people who are also able to speak English for a translator to be a lucrative job, and that I always got bored before finishing a story. So I got confused. At the very least there's one criteria: I want something that has to do with arts. Out of all the careers I thought of, being an architect sounds not only artistically challenging, but also cool because it's all about "clever engineering". So that's why I signed up for an Architecture major. Now I'm nearing my twentieth birthday, and honestly, all I want for my life is peace, quiet and freedom. It's amaz...

People are angry over the recent leak that Cambridge Analytica has datas of Facebook users, and started the #DeleteFacebook campaign, basically telling people to move elsewhere to socialize. It got so huge even Elon Musk joined in. Question: has this stopped the data mining? The answer is no. Even if you delete Facebook, you get tons of other apps that Facebook still owns, and therefore controls. An example of this is Instagram. In case you haven't realized, Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars back in 2012. So technically, they would still be able to mine all your data from there. Move to something Facebook doesn't own? Twitter gained 70 million dollars from it back in 2014. Google keeps literally every search word you've ever entered, even the ones you erased off your history. Good luck living without Google. These social media companies gain money, and it's how they sustain their platforms. The corporations that get the data need it for business devel...

You would think that after 17 people died in the recent Parkland school shooting, people would have the sense to lock guns away and forbid mentally unstable people to be armed with it. BUUUT apparently the government decides to arm teachers with guns instead. This is bad because: one, not all teachers are mentally stable enough to do so, two, it can get to someone else who's actually dangerous, three, it's not exactly helpful when you may very well accidentally shoot innocents in all the panic. It only came up because the government fears putting a ban in case of the NRA. Any misstep and they get kicked out. The question is, how did the NRA get so powerful? A lot of people were convinced that its because of the amount of money they gave to the politicians. News flash: that's not where they spent most of their money at. Truth is, their power lies in their membership, and their ability to influence them. They spent billions on making campaign guides and advertisements....

Hekilledmehekilledmychildhoodhewantedtohurtmehe'sresponsiblehedoesn'tdeserve to live. I tried my best to hang on to that string of thought. It's the only thing that's making me grip this syringe as I sneaked past the night guards to the patient room. He came in this morning. Apparently his car got slammed by a truck down at the 9th Avenue that lost control because the driver forgot to put snow chains on the wheels despite it being winter. Guess karma comes at its own pace. I looked down at him. They managed to stabilize him, and he's sleeping. He won't wake up anytime soon, the drug they gave him was too strong. This probably will be the only chance I'll ever get. I bring out every ounce of loathing I have for the guy. Every memory, sickening touch, and disgusting caress. When he had invited his friends over, and every time he let them rape me. Every time he demanded for my salary and had me beaten up because I refused to give it to him. Whe...

"MOVE, goddammit!! It's your turn to move! God, why are you such an idiot?" "Just look at her, squirming all over the place. Why'd she even join in the first place, anyway?" "Marie dear, perhaps it would be better for you to...be in the back row, this time." I know I'm not talented. I'm not as flexible as Shea, or as pretty and graceful as Tiana. I dance like a baby elephant who just learned how to walk, and I maybe even weigh the same as one. I stumbled around so much my legs are still bruised three weeks after a practice. And that's why I hate ballet class. Unfortunately, getting out is not really an option for me. My mother will not stop until she can mold me into a ballerina like she was. To her desperation, that's not an easy feat. She has this image of a girl who's beautiful and smart and talented; the girl who amazes people with her pirouettes and grand jetes. Instead she gets someone who takes after the husband she...

Childhood me spent days playing with antiques, from aforementioned weapons to my mum's old toys. My grandfather's often annoyed because I kept messing up. His coins collection would get all over his bed, not to mention the shurikens and binoculars used for spy games. So he made me less messy toys, like an indoor swing, in his workshop, just across his room. One of the other perks is that I would sit still to watch him work, so I wouldn't mess stuff up. The place has two levels. The first was for the heavy machineries. The projects here were work related, like maquettes. I remember being so fascinated I asked him to keep one so that I can play with it (he said no). Instead he told me about this machine he bought from another country that helped him make them. When he knew I got interested in architecture, he told me he'd pass it to me. He didn't get to though, and until today we're still unsure where it is. The second level was for his more personal projects,...

Prompt: My favorite place in the world I used to live in my maternal grandparent's house. It housed my grandmother's family before, but since they went and got their own houses, my grandparents were left. My grandfather, who works in construction, modified it to accommodate my grandmother's traditional cakes business and his workshop. I should mention that my grandfather was an eccentric collector who loved woodwork. He used to study medicine, but didn't like it and dropped off to try other stuff before settling down in construction. It's unclear what this other stuff was. He always avoided the question. His things included old-fashioned scales, an accordion, a stethoscope, an air rifle, a crossbow, a katana (for self defense, he said), lots of cameras, two shelves full of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and one for law books. His acquaintances included a European countess. Make of that what you will. The best part of the house is his room and workshop. Open ...

Prompts: what you've been into lately I've been obsessing over ice skating lately. I'm not sure if it's the fever from watching Evgenia Medvedeva and the Virtue-Moir pair during the recent Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, or that Paris Van Java FINALLY reopens their skating rink, or if I just haven't gone for a very long time and missed it. It's a tradition for my family to visit ice rinks whenever we went for a holiday in Jakarta. It was especially a treat because Batam doesn't have them. We used to have a temporary rink set up in the middle of a mall, but that was gone in about 3 months because the upkeep was expensive and nobody cared enough to make it permanent, despite it being so popular. And then there's Avava's "skating rink" that's half the size of my high school's classroom and uses these "ice" that are really just slabs of solid plastic, put together much like the tiles in our beloved Sekre. That's why chanc...