My Life Situation

I am a senior in high school, and I am going to graduate in about two months.  I plan to attend NICC in Peosta to train to become a registered nurse.  I plan to obtain a job this summer in order to help pay for textbooks and have more money for me to spend personally.  I will probably live at home until I can obtain a job that pays me enough to get my own place, and to help look after my mother who has heart failure and type two diabetes.  I will take things in stride, and try not to worry about college too much.

Red Mist

I have recently started to read the book "Red Mist" by Patricia Cornwell.  It describes the murder of a prison inmate in a maximum security facility in Savannah.  The main character is Kay Scarpetta, and she was in Savannah to visit an inmate who was convicted of sexually assaulting Kay Scarpetta's colleague when he was little.  Local authorities asked Kay Scarpetta for her expertise to help in the case of a murdered inmate.  I enjoy reading this book, because the plot is more sophisticated than a simple murder mystery, and the author does a great job of explaining details in the environment.  I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys murder mysteries.

Graduation

I feel excited about getting out of high school, and going onto college. I will no longer be a simple high school student, I will be a mature adult attending college; trying my hardest to earn a genuine education. It will be difficult for me to adjust to working, and attending college at the same time.  I will have to balance my time between going to work, and the homework I will receive in my college classes.  It will certainly be a major adjustment for me.

My Object of Beauty

Laura Haas

Mr. Brindle

English 12

November 14, 2013

                                                         My Object of Beauty

                I sit on my mother’s queen size bed, basking in the magnificent pleasure I receive when I play you.  Your slim, sleek, white body standing tall as you rest at your rightful place on the third shelf of the t.v. stand, wired and wireless controllers lay scattered around you.  I pause, taking a minute to thoroughly examine you, and fully appreciate you.  To some, you are simply a material object to be used and discarded by greedy, money hungry gaming corporations to obtain maximum profit, but to me, you are beautiful.     

You possess beauty unparallel to every other console in existence.  When I return home from a very stressful day at school, I plop down on my mother’s queen size bed, and breathe a sigh of relief as I watch a bright green circle encompass the button located toward the bottom of the console, signaling that it is turning on.  When I am with you, nothing else matters, time itself seems to stand still, all my problems withering away and dying like an evil serpent that lost its head.  I am granted blessed relief for a fleeting moment.  You make me forget, like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders.  I forget about the stress of writing long tedious papers on subjects I do not care about.  I forget about having to study for pointless tests that cannot possibly prepare me for the future ahead.  I forget about having to please teachers.  I forget about having to wake up at six thirty every morning.  I forget about everything, because nothing else matters.

You provoke an extremely strong emotion inside me, so strong it almost physically pulls me back so I can remain with you.  I awake the next morning, the bright yellow sun shines brightly through the windows, illuminating the whole room.  I reluctantly get dressed and ready for another dull, mind-numbing day at school where I do not learn much of anything.  I step down the old, concrete steps in order to get into my silver 2001 Grand Am Se, but I pause, feeling a strong desire rush through me.  I long to return to you, to feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins like water through a floodgate.  I long to feel the sweat soaked controller in the palms of my hands as I race against my fellow street racers in a fake virtual realm.  I ride inside of a fully customized Camaro that rides low to the ground, and was completely black except for the dark blood red stripe in the center that ran the length of the car.  At school I feel distracted; when I should be concentrating on how to use synthetic division to solve a problem, my mind wanders elsewhere.  I think of the most recent game I have played, and feel anxious to return home and continue where I left off.  When Mrs. McDermott stands in the front of the small classroom and gives a lecture on how to properly conjugate Spanish verbs, I stare off at the wall in a trance.  I think about the excitement I feel as I wander aimlessly around a map slaughtering mindless flood with a shotgun, or a pistol.  I think about the rage I feel when some random flood slashes me with its large claws and I die as a result.  Instead of focusing on the school lecture, my mind keeps wandering back to you.  No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to fully separate from you.  I love my Xbox 360.

 

some things you just cannot learn...

   Some things you just can’t learn in school.  It was on a Saturday, my friend Cody and I were sitting on my mother’s queen size bed situated in the middle of the room.  The sun was shining brightly through the windows with crimson red curtains attached to them.  My friend Cody and I just got done playing Halo 4 on my Xbox 360, which was sitting on a three shelf stand, with the t.v. sitting on the very top shelf, and my Xbox 360 was sitting on the second shelf, with all of my controllers surrounding it.  Cody and I did not feel like playing Halo 4 anymore, so we decided to simply talk instead.  We sat for about an hour, just talking to each other about various topics.  I am not a very talkative person, so talking with someone is usually something I am not very comfortable doing, unless I know that person well, but I learned something that day.  I learned how to voice my feelings and opinions to someone else.  Some things you just can’t learn in school. 

 

The Bone Bed So Far...

For English 12, we had to pick out a book for us to read, so I chose the Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell.  I have not finished reading this book yet, I am only on page 90, but I will explain what I have read so far.  The main character is Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist, and the story is told from her point of view.  Kay Scarpetta runs the CFC, or the Cambridge Forensic Center.  The book starts off inside Kay Scarpetta's office at approximately 5:00 in the morning on a Monday.  She was sitting at her desk drinking coffee, looking at a email she received Sunday night.  The email contains a video showing someone driving a boat on a river, heading west.  The video ends by showing a severed ear.  It is at this point that Kay Scarpetta's niece Lucy shows up inside the office, and they talk about the email that Kay Scarpetta received, and who might have sent it.  They talk for awhile, and then Pete Marino, Kay Scarpetta's head investigator at the CFC, appears inside her office, and Lucy leaves.  Pete Marino is on the phone with a marine rescuer, who talks to Kay Scarpetta and tells her that they have discovered a leatherback, an endangered turtle, in a bay in Boston, and there is a body attached to the line the turtle got caught up in.  Kay Scarpetta and Pete Marino goes to the crime scene on a coast guard boat.  When they arrive at the scene, Kay Scarpetta is observing the leatherback, and collecting all the necessary evidence.  This is as far as I have gotten in the book, but I hope this has been a good description of what I have read so far.

About Me...

Hello, my name is Laura Haas.  I am a 17 year old high school student currently enrolled in Cascade High School. I am a quiet and shy person, but once I get to know people, I am much more talkative. I am an honor roll student, I usually get A's and B's in my classes, but I have to work hard and study in order to get grades like that.  When I graduate, I plan on going to NICC to study healthcare.  I work hard in school because I believe everyone should try their hardest in everything they do, I do not go for "good enough," I try to do everything to the best of my ability.  I believe that it is better to be able to say that you tried your hardest and failed, rather than not trying at all.  I believe that if you work hard and try your best, you will be very successful in anything that you choose to do. 

Besides my philosophical beliefs, I also have various interests and hobbies just like everyone else.  I love to play video games, and listen to music.  I love to play video games, because they relax me when I am really stressed out.  My favorite type of video game to play is role playing game.  My favorite RPG series is the Elder Scrolls series.  I love being able to do anything you want in a video game, and the Elder Scrolls series certainly delivers.  Beside video games, I love to listen to music, I especially like the calming effect music has on me.  I especially like rap music.  I do not know exactly why I love rap music, I have just always liked it.  I love to listen to a song, and then have to sit and think about the message the rapper was trying to get across.  My favorite rappers are Eminem, Tupac, Nas, Masta Ace, and there are many more, but I am not going to list them all, because if I did, I would be here all day.  I am also a fan of drawing and art.  I love drawing mythical creatures, and shading them in to made the picture look realistic.  I am not a big fan of actually coloring the pictures in though, I leave my pictures in black and white.  Drawing is something that helps me get my mind off of things.  This is especially helpful when I need a distraction from my sometimes stressful life. 

I feel that this post would not be complete unless I talked about my personality as well as my interests and hobbies.  I am a rather shy and quiet person.  I do not like talking to strangers, and sometimes feel uncomfortable around them, but do not interpret that the wrong way and thing I am someone who hates strangers, that is not it at all, I am just a shy person.  I may not talk to you much if I do not know you, but once I get to know you I become quite talkative.  I am polite to everybody though, and my friends will be the first to tell you that I am a caring and generous person at heart, and I will help anybody that needs help.  I am the type of person that will help anybody I can, and even go out of my way to make sure that person has everything they need.  I may be quiet, but I am actually one of the nicest people you will ever meet.  With all that said, this will conclude my post for the time being.