One, Two, Eleven and Back to Five
My parents used to say that I was a big girl now and could clean up my room by myself. Yet, when we went to the restaurant, I was too little to sit without a booster seat. I never could figure out why I was too big for somethings and that same day be too little for others. With this story, twenty years later, I think I figured it out. If you are eleven years old, how can you be ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two or even one? Pondering that statement, I seen myself when I was eleven in a classroom full of kids. Sandra Cisneros' "Eleven", she states, "When you are eleven, you're also ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one." What helped me figure out the meaning to this quote was the comparisons that she used to describe it, "The way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside each other, each year inside the next one." This quote made me think, what exactly I was feeling into a simple sentence. Little Rachael seems confused on how old she should be after a confrontation with her teacher. She insists that there is a part of us that is still one, two, three, four and so on. As I was reading, I felt a
I remember watching a talk show a few months ago that had grade school children who were harrassed by teachers or children at school. They were adults now and wanted to appear on the talk show and confront the people that harrassed them, showing them how good they looked now or what they have accomplished in their life that was spectacular. I thought of this after reading what Rachel went through with her teacher. I don't think that she will forget this for awhile. Children's self esteem is often damaged by different kinds of ridiculing and embarassment of others. When the author refers to Rachel saying "maybe because I am skinny, maybe because she doesn't like me" makes me think that Rachel is not going to overcome this experience for any time too soon. Bell rang, and into the hall rushed all the students. I was walking down the beige corridor, but the girl who teased me with constant tormenting attacks, was walking in my direction. At my locker, I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Feeling like a million minutes had gone by, she finally approached me. She grabbed my purple folder out of my hands, and she flung it across the hall. Papers flew everywhere like snow covering the ground. A paper fell at my feet that was folded like a triangle, as I knelt down she stepped on my fingers. The tears, as though I were four, flooded my eyes. I stood back up and she picked up the paper. "A note!" she squealed loudly, loud of enough that a few of her friends stopped to see the commotion was about. My heart sank and little butterflies were fluttering, fluttering around. I standed there silently. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. I wanted to grab the
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1130
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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