Caleb Li

Mrs. Belden

10-5-2014

McCandless Project

My experiment was to sit at a different lunch table with a new and different group than which I usually sit with. People at the lunch table I used to sit at wondered why I left and came over to ask me but I didn’t tell them anything. The group of people at the lunch table I sat at were engrossed in their own activities and for the most part didn’t react. They maybe glanced once but continued with their usual tasks. During the experiment I wasn’t too surprised at the limited reaction and I was curious what my peers thought. It wasn't bad sitting with different people but we just didn’t talk. I would probably be more surprised with their reaction since I thought they would ask why I was there or stare but they weren’t fazed. I think I would be free to not conform because even though I would prefer not to break away from my current habits I wouldn’t have a huge problem changing or trying something new. However I would never go to the extremes Chris McCandless went through since that would be way too far.

Quote Explanation

         I chose my quote, I may not agree with what you say but I agree with your right to say it, because I think in America we have the right of free speech which we take for granted where in other countries people can't say what they want to. Even though I may not have the same viewpoint as someone else on a topic I think they should still be able to express it. This is why when in small groups I like to hear everyone's opinion instead of just one person doing everything. Right now my life wouldn't change much since everybody already can say what they want but if I lived in a country where that wouldn't be possible I would always be pushing for people to say what they want to or what they believe without fear of being prosecuted.

La Short Story

Caleb L.                      
Mrs. Belden
Honors English I
5 October 2014
The Clue
It was quiet... too quiet. That could only mean that someone, or something was there. The old dilapidated wooden house creaked after every step. Erie marble pillars that aligned the inside gave a sinister tone. The hooded man masterfully slithered through the vast and spacious living quarters to ascend the stairs into the master bedroom.
“Where was it? Where was the crucial cure needed to solve the impending disaster?” he thought.
  Clue after clue he finally arrived at the destination of the so called cure. The agonizing  journey had finally reached the end and everything would be alright. The bedroom contained blood-red curtains protecting the two small windows where a slim blade of light crawled in. Other than that the room was dark and empty. An abyss with one opening. He stepped toward the black wooden drawer, a gray stone serpent on top with emerald green eyes and what seemed to be dark scales of a somber nature. He couldn’t stay here much longer. The sinister statue almost looked alive, the emerald eyes almost as if reaching for the depths of his soul. He reached his hand toward the drawer to open it. It was locked. He hesitated, dare he break it? He thought in the complete silence surrounding him, except for the scratching sound which had a faint echo. The man slowly grabbed the handle and pulled again harder, the serpent statue seemed to move, and a click occurred. The drawer creaked open. Inside was a brown, crumpled, and burnt letter. The man picked it up , brought it to the faint light spiking out the window, and read: They are coming for me, I have no escape, my life is fading as I am writing this. I have but one warning, do not linger in the darkness, they will find you, and make you wish for death as one would wish to live. The writing slurred off into some unreadable scribbles. At the end of the letter there was a tube which had a winged creature engraved into it, he picked it up and put it into his pocket. He couldn’t believe the cure was in his hands, and after false hope again and again he finally achieved the intent he so aspired for. Nothing else was there beside the cure tube. Nothing except the penetrating sounds of the scratching. The scratching got louder, this time the man could hear it faintly. The air turned frigid, the figurine serpent’s head seemed to actually move. The head almost appeared to sway in such a manner as if leaves in the wind. The man slowly turned to the door. It was shut. The blade of light blinked out of existence. He walked over to the door and tried to twist the old metal handle that had webs of rust spiraling like those of a spider. It was locked. The scratching got louder and louder. Suddenly a great thump reverberated through the house and all was still. The door swung open. The hall leading down to the stairs was empty. Black and red carpets gripping the floor in grotesque fashions. The man stepped outside the room. He now saw the painted hallway which had freakish tapestries of gruesome beasts with unimaginable terrors. The lights flickered out. Now the whole house was swallowed up by the void of darkness. One of the tapestries seemed to move a bit. Something dropped out making the same thump that he heard before. Only this time, the silence faded. 
A deep voice spoke, “Feeble human, you dare desecrate the ancient grounds of the exiled.”
Suddenly another deep voice spoke,” Your blood will be spilled on these hallowed grounds. “
Right after, a chorus of voices started chanting unrecognizable phrases with tones of colossal dread. The man ran down the stairs and tripped over a step. He fell down and fell flat on the cold lifeless wood floor. The evil tapestry figures stopped speaking, the world turned black as he closed his eyes and slipped out of consciousness. All was silent.
The man woke up in a cell, pentagonal in shape with flame torches illuminating the pointed corners cold and without life, he could tell it was not made by any hands of the living world. He tried to move but his muscles forbade even the slightest of alterations to his state. He was simply a pawn stuck to a chess board. Unable to determine the move his life would make or if his doom was imminent. He tried to reach his pocket, slowly and with immense pain his arm came free of the paralyzing trance and he felt a small tube in his pocket. He still had the cure, useless of course, unless he managed to escape. The manner of objectives now looked like an impossible task, but when he started the mission for the cure had  he not thought it was impossible? The only thing that kept him sane and together was hope, tested countless times beyond imagination the will to succeed was sprinkling out like sands of a hourglass. He was running out of time, every second in the cell seemed to take a chunk of his soul out, he resorted to shutting down all functions of his self except for thinking, there had to be a way out. A few seconds later the door swung open and a key dropped down from the emptiness outside of the cell. The man squinted his eyes in disbelief. What part did he have to play now, was this a trap? Was he tied to the same fate of a insect crawling into a flytrap? He reached the key with his foot and with a swift kick, brought it into his hands. Quickly releasing the shackles around him he sprang up, and out of the door into a claustrophobic hallway. The hallway had only one exit which had a foreboding look. Post Victorian pillars supported the corridor containing cracked brick and mold encrusted rock. This reminded the man of when he was hunting in temples of the amazon jungle, danger appeared at every corner probably similar to what he experienced right now. He let his fate fall into the hands of luck and ran through the hallway ending up at a brightly illuminated room with a magnanimous pit. He couldn’t tell how deep or expansive the cylindrical pit was but having no intention to fall in he gripped the circular sides of the room. It started as a faint thump but the same sounds from the old house were resurrected in an exponential growth until the climax of a thundering roar permeated the whole structure. A dark figure seemed to appear at the bottom of the pit, this was it, his doom behold. A piercing pain stabbed at the man and he fell to his knees, nightmares over and over jumping at him. In the midst of the agony he saw a faint light, mentally reaching for it with all his will it seemed he would fail. But bit by bit he was getting closer, pain so great the effects were numbing his being pleaded to stop and give up. The man did not give up. With the last of his effort he reached the light and a loud explosion occurred as his world flipped upside-down and all was gone. He opened his eyes in what seemed an oblivion, and laughed.

Metacognitive Thinking for Summer Reading Essay

          Between my rough draft and my final copy of the And Then There Were None essay I changed many things. I added more commentary and details to my story and also increased the length of explanation. Some of my quotes were not in the right format and some references I made to the book were not present tense so I changed those.
         I think the peer revision and the checklist help equally yet more then the parent review since peers were writing stories in the same format and the checklist told me what I needed. Peers helped compare my essay to the checklist making sure I covered everything and telling me what I needed to add.
         The peer revision and checklist will help me improve my writing throughout the year since sometimes I might not be able to find a mistake but a friend will. A checklist is a good way to make sure I include everything.
          The thing I probably need to improve the most on this year is correctly using punctuation such as commas. I also want to improve on using good sentence structure and grammar. At the end of the year I want to be able to correctly write essays with very few punctuational errors and use complex sentences as well as a variety of transition words.