Junior Year

-Before I get started, I just want to say that junior year was not a prime year for writing. Like I said in the introduction, every piece we did was based off a story or passages from the final. Therefore, the writing junior year was more analytical and essay based. I didn't like this very much, but what could I do?


Chutney

          "Mrs. Caziz walks around like a wicker cane. She is empty like a well." This quote signifies how much sorrow and pain Mrs. Caziz has been through. She has nothing in her life that makes her happy, especially her crazy and abusive husband. She has nowhere to go, nobody to rely on. That is, until she meets a young girl who changes her life forever. Cooking chutney was the only outlet for Mrs. Caziz before she met her future apprentice. But, chutney can't provide all the necessities for a person to release all their emotions and problems. That's wy the young girl is crucial to Mrs. Caziz. Though cooking chutney and developing a new friendship with the young girl, Mrs. Caziz grasped the opportunity to rekindle her confidence and self esteem and gain a sense of pride and identity. These two things Mrs. Caziz has in her life are her outlets for her troubles, allowing her to be happy and face reality knowing htat she has a supporting network.

          "The only time she doesn't purse her lips so they turn white is when she's cooking. I say nothing, afraid to crack her. She is an egg and I'm afraid to spill out her yolk." This passage exemplifies how crucial cooking is to Mrs. Caziz. Throughout the entire story, she is being punished and yelled at for being ugly. As a result, whenever customers come in like the woman with a "voice that sparkles champagne" Mrs. Caziz hides downstairs until they have left. This personifies how much control and impact Mr. Caziz's words have on her confidence and self-esteem. But, the only thing Mr. Caziz cannot take away from her is her passion and joy for cooking. When the narrator enters her life, she takes complete advantage of her opportunity to teach this young girl how to cook. While she is teaching this young girl, she regains a sense of identity and independence, smiling and laughing, as she watches the narrator attempt to make chutney. Outside of the chutney, Mrs. Caziz has nowhere to go, nobody to help her, and nothing that makes her happy until the narrator enters her life. Through the purple eyes, verbal abuse, and constant craziness of her husband, Mrs. Caziz desparately needed someone in her life to release her anxieties, feelings, and memories of her past. The young girl is Mrs. Caziz's second outlet, proving that building a relationship can have an impact on someone's life forever.

         The young girl and narrator created the perfect friendship because they have so much in common. Like Mrs. Caziz, the young girl comes from a place with nobody who she can rely on and has nowhere to go. "But we needed money to keep my stomach from avenging me in the night." The one person in her life, her mother, is similar to Mr. Caziz since she is described as a "crying raging floating person" who tells her daughter that cows fly and that her mother was FDR. Therefore, they have such familiar pasts and can relate to each other. In the last few paragraphs, we see Mrs. Caziz giving powerful advice to the young girl, telling her to keep her youth in a bubble. In addition, she finds herself telling this young girl about her childhood, recalling her fondest memories of her past in India. This gives Mrs. Caziz so much pleasure that the narrator describes her overwhelming joy as "Her wrists shake and her bangles clink against each other as her face relaxes. Little monkey hands branch out from the corner of her eyes when she smiles." The narrator being there allows Mrs. Caziz to release all her sadness, anger, and other bottled up emotions and memories Therefore, when the narrator states, "I notice how much she is starting to resemble the chutney that she makes," I believe that the narrator is trying to say that she is happy and rejuvinated since her passion is creating chutney, which in turn is the thing that makes her most happy in life.

          It's astonishing how cooking a simple seasoning like chutney can have such a big impact on one's life. Chutney is the pride and joy of Mrs. Caziz. Cooking chutney is her escape from the harsh world she lives in. Her tough times take a turn for the better when the narrator enters her life. A new friendship is created, which allows Mrs. Caziz to rediscover her joy outside of cooking spices. Truly, the power of friendship can never be under-estimated.

Chutney Reflection

-After reading this piece, I learned a few things. First off, I must've used the word "chutney" over a hundred times, along with "Mrs. Caziz". Also, I noticed that I plugged in random quotes and didn't explain their significance and how they related to the story. Moreover, I noticed that I used the same lines over and over again, trying to lenghten the piece. Granted that this piece was written under time constraints, I definitely notice how much I've improved from last year. There was no conferencing for this piece, and therefore cannot be expanded or improved for the future.


Prom

         The highlight of high school is most definitely attending Prom. Going downtown with your classmates from school and celebrating with dinner and dancing is like no other experience. Junior year is the first year guys can go to prom. At first, I was ecstatic about the idea of going to prom with the girl of your choice. I imagined myself at the sweet Marriot Hotel, talking with my friends at the dinner table and then enjoying a lovely dance with my date. Then, post prom would come around and everyone would have a great time spending the night with each other, whether it be watching movies, reflecting on the previous day’s events, or playing games all throughout the night. At post prom, I’d release all of my anxieties, worries, and stress for that very magical night. But, after imagining all of this, I realized that there was one humongous problem: getting rejected by the person you want to take.

When my brother went to prom when I was a freshman, I made fun of him a lot because he was nervous about getting rejected or asking the girl he wanted to go with. I would constantly give him smack for not manning up and asking a girl. I mean, how hard could that be? During sophomore year, I told my brother and my friends that I would ask the hottest girl to prom because I wasn’t a wimp like the rest of them. But, when junior year came around and it was time for me to actually step up, I found out why my brother had struggled to get a date. What if I got rejected? Who was my first option? Who was my fallback? How do I ask her? These are all questions that tortured my mind as the months of junior year flew by and prom was rapidly getting closer. After everybody reconvened from spring break on April 4^th, the asking began. I fell way behind the game as I watched almost all of my friends ask their dates during that week. They all had clever ideas, whether it be putting rocks in front of the girls house that read “Prom”, or filling the locker with tennis balls that say “Prom”. One of my friends even wrote a song and sang it to his prom date. Fortunately, all of my friends date’s said yes, which boosted my confidence a little bit. But, I still needed to find out who I was going to ask and how I was going to do it. Finally, I got a hint from one of my friends that a certain girl wanted to go with me. She hadn’t been asked, so I decided to go for it. After searching on the Internet “creative ways to ask a girl to prom”, I finally stumbled upon a method that was both easy and cute. I bought a really big teddy bear, put hand-picked roses in its arms, and had a card in the flowers that read “Prom”. When I approached her door to deliver the package, I made sure that nobody was watching and that she was the one to answer the door. I called her to come outside and answer the door. When she came to the door, I was holding the teddy bear with the flowers in front of my face. I told her to grab the teddy bear and read the card in the flowers. She seemed very excited and surprised since I went to her house at 11 at night without any warning at all. When I asked her myself, she immediately said “YES!” and hugged me in exhilaration. At that moment, a huge monkey went off my back, for now I knew that I had a cute date to prom. When we said our goodbyes, all I could think about was how I wasn’t going to be the kid that didn’t have the guts to ask the girl he wanted to go with. That night, all I could think about was post prom, which is a completely different story itself.

Prom Reflection

-This was a portfolio piece for my Junior portfolio and I remember writing it in less than 2 hours. It's obvious that this piece was basically bullshitted because there's absolutely no direction or meaning to the piece. The only thing this piece does is outline the experience of what happens before, during, and after prom. There's no creativity in this piece because I conferenced it once with a classmate who gave me no constructive feedback. Therefore, the work I put into this piece shows itself. But, the concept of Prom is definitely something I've considered writing about in the future. As for this piece, I think all hope as escaped it.

Childhood Memory

   The most vivid memory of my childhood was learning how to ride a bike. Right before my fifth birthday, I set a goal to master the two-wheeled bicycle. Although I still don’t know why it was so important to me, something about moving from three to two wheels was special. For months, I’d watch my older brother and his friends chase each other around on their two-wheelers, zooming around the culdesac, laughing at me as I tearfully watched them mock me. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and humiliated. I wanted to prove them all wrong by going as fast as them one day. I imagined whooping them in races around the culdesac and throwing all their insults back in their faces. The time for revenge was never more present than those two weeks before my fifth birthday. For the first week, I focused on balancing on the bike before even riding it. I wanted to make the first real ride a memory I’d never forget. I wanted to show those goons that I could ride a two-wheeler without failure. Each day, I would gear up in my Quicksilver black helmet, Reebok kneepads and elbow pads, and Nike low cut black shoes before getting on the bike. I sought after perfection and nothing less. Preparation was essential and I was willing to take every precaution so that when the day came to ride that two-wheeler, I would not fail. All the long hours that I put in during that hot, sticky, humid summer in August would most certainly pay off. After mastering the balancing technique, I decided to pedal for the first time. I was so confident in my abilities that I called all my brothers friends to watch me perform. The moment everyone sat down to watch me; I announced that I would successfully coast around the culdesac without falling. When I put my feet into the holders where the pedals were, I felt confident. I was balancing perfectly on the bike and decided to pedal without thinking. That was a huge mistake. Without even traveling more than two feet, I leaned over the bike so far to the point where the front wheel launched me completely out of the seat. I face planted into the scorching sidewalk, with streams of blood gushing from my broken nose. Tears flowed down my red hot cheeks as I got up and ran back into my house in humiliation.  My brother and his friends were crying because of laughing so hard at my utter failure. Since that day, I have not once attempted to ride a two-wheeled bicycle.

Childhood Memory Reflection

-Again, this was another terrible Junior Portfolio workshop piece. As you can see, it's one paragraph long. It's actually funny reading this piece because it sounds like a reflection itself! There's no direction, meaning, or significance in this piece. This is just a stupid memory of mine, and I had no creativity in telling this memory. The point of view makes the piece dull, and the writing itself was dreadful. Again, I probably spent a total of two hours scrambling to write this piece. If anything, this piece has taught me just how much harder I've worked in Creative Writing, and what it takes to make quality piece. As for trying to salvage this piece in the future, I would say that I could possibly do it since my "Dream Piece" this year was also a memory. If I took a creative approach to telling this memory, I think the end result would actually be successful.