Awareness is something that we all use, whether it is at work, school, or while watching the television. It is important that people always have the quality of awareness, no matter how boring something is. Even if you have heard the same instructions hundreds of times, it is important to keep listening with awareness. If I had lived by that, listening to instructions with awareness, my worst injury would have never happened.
It was a special day for my friend. It was his birthday, and his birthday party was mere hours away. As I waited exuberantly for the clock to tick down, I texted him and asked him if he wanted to go biking before his birthday party. The best part about us being friends was that we lived right across from each other, and we could play together whenever we wanted, if we could. We kicked our bikes out of our garages and rode down our driveways. We raced on our bikes, went around the neighborhood, and showed some captivating tricks.
After some time, we decided we were going to head inside and play some games in my house, so we made one last trip around the neighborhood’s cul-de-sac before going there. Just as we were about to reach my driveway, I turned around and started talking to my friend about what games we should play. As I took a glimpse at my friend, he had a peculiar look on his face. He almost seemed afraid. As I deftly turned around, he blurted, “WATCH OUT!” I only had a brief period of time to react to the imminent crash, straight into my mailbox. My mind yelled for me to turn to the side, but my body was frozen in fear.
Unfortunately, my mailbox was not like my neighbors’ one made of thin metal and wood. My mailbox was essentially made of sharp, rigid steel. As I approached the looming, angry mailbox, time seemed to slow down. I braced myself for the impact, but nothing seemed to happen. I opened my eyes. I was indeed approaching the mailbox but much slower than before. This gave me just enough time to break out of my shocked state, and with my quivering arms, turn a few inches to the side. Then, altogether, time sped up, and the impending crash had finally occurred.
I opened my eyes. I was on the ground, face staring at the sky. My ears were ringing blaringly. My friend was continuously tapping me in a way that implied I was blacked out for quite some time. My bike was resting on my legs, like a baby resting on a couch. The mailbox materialized into my view to my right. With shuddering breaths, I told my friend that I was awake. As my eyes finally burst open, they were instantly blinded by the luminous sun. My natural reaction was to roll to my side to get the sun out of my eyes, but with that came the first wave of pain. The pain quickly echoed through my body, making me unable to pinpoint the origin of the pain. I tried to breathe deeply to assuage the pain, but then I realized that I couldn’t breathe. I signaled for my friend to help me get up, that I couldn’t breathe. He helped me as I staggered towards my house, a process that seemed like it would last the rest of the week. By the time I had finally gotten to my house, I could breathe again, but the pain started to become worse. I went into the house, thanked my friend, and then, shortly after, went to the hospital.
That day, I learned a very important lesson. Awareness is a key thing to your well-being. If I had listened to my parents with awareness, none of that would have happened. I would have had a fun day at my friend’s birthday party and gone home ecstatic. Looking back on the incident now, this awareness may have saved my life that day. The “slowing down” of time is a natural ability that happens right before injury so that humans have time to comprehend what is going to happen. Had I not been aware of this slowdown, my head could have hit the mailbox straight on. Now, years after this incident, I always listen to whatever somebody is saying with awareness. It has helped me in school, when trying new things, and when listening to instructions.
-Ivan S.
This writing piece is very well done in that the message is very apparent and clearly incorporated in the story. Support through detail was a very evident technique clearly portrayed in the whole piece, which helped tie in said details to the main idea and story. The crash when you finally smash against the mailbox described as rigid and steel is very impactful, as the details stated before set a fearful atmosphere that does gradually intensify. Every ounce of detail in setting, situation, and story is supported through the story and everything flows together smoothly. One example of this is in paragraph 4, the height of impact, “As I approached the looming, angry mailbox, time seemed to slow down. I braced myself for the impact, but nothing seemed to happen.” Not only does this apply sensory language in great detail to the situation, but it also ties into the paragraph to heavily connect with the surrounding main idea of awareness. The last paragraph states how the human mind and body uses the slowing of time in an emergency as a defense mechanism to act quickly, which thoroughly supports how “time seemed to slow down” in paragraph 4. The central idea of how awareness is something to be mindful of and the importance of it is also very impactful in the conclusion, and it connects to the entire story in that awareness was the thing causing conflict. While reading, it is very easy to follow along as if you are experiencing it yourself, and can be very relatable as about every human has had a moment where they were lacking awareness and suffered some sort of repercussion.
ReplyDeleteYour introduction's last sentence, “If I had lived by that, listening to instructions with awareness, my worst injury would have never happened.” I thought it was engaging and made me want to read further. The lesson of Awareness is fitting for your story, mostly because your narrative is about an injury that wouldn’t have happened if you were aware of what was happening around you.
ReplyDeleteIn Ivan’s narrative, I really like how he used sensory language. In one paragraph it states, “As my eyes finally burst open, they were instantly blinded by the luminous sun.” This is a prime example of sensory language because he explains the surroundings in a very mature way. He does it so well that I don’t need to think that much and I know what the memory looked like. This narrative reminds me that my awareness plays into my everyday life and keeps me from getting hurt.
ReplyDeleteIvan caught my attention when he wrote, “my worst injury would have never happened.” This quote intrigued me and I immediately wanted to read on.
ReplyDeleteFrom Jackson:
ReplyDeleteIvan, you made this story really engaging. I kept reading to see what happened next. You used tension to help keep me and any other readers hooked on the story. But in the story we never found out what the injury that you sustained was, and it would have been nice to add. But your words were truly amazing, “As my eyes finally burst open they were instantly blinded by the luminous sun.” That line from the story was really descriptive and it was amazing how you worded it. Your story was really engaging and I enjoyed reading it.