Pencils and Erasers

  Last Friday, Gatsby had leaned against his 09 Honda Civic, which had its headlights almost kind of rusty but it still shined shining towards the Boulan Park parking lot. The cool night air vibrated from Gatsby’s portable speaker, which was a little to loud for a public park, but Gatsby couldn’t care less. He had spent almost all week planning his bomb of a party, and amazingly, he got half of the junior class to show up. Nick was literally live streaming the whole thing, almost like he was making a documentary, not that anyone was watching. Jordan was scrolling through Tik Tok acting like she didn’t care much about the party, but she literally recorded every second. Halfway into the party Tom pulled up uninvited in his Washington Commanders jersey, and his roaring pickup with freshly shined paint, revving his engine to make a scenic entrance. I had felt a bit bad for Gatsby, because most of us guys knew the reason why he threw this whole party. It was for Daisy. They had been t...

This Friday, I acted as Tom Buchanan in my chapter seven skit of The Great Gatsby. Playing Tom in the moment, I wasn’t just filling in for some role or a grade, although I do love a couple points of extra credit now and then. But it’s clear that sometimes the only way to genuinely understand a story is to live it yourself. Performing as Mr. Buchanan allowed me to really take a step inside the book. I was no longer reading lines from a book, I was experiencing real tension, anger, and the heat of confrontation in the room. I didn’t just speak Mr. Buchanan’s lines, I literally became his pride, his jealousy, and I claimed his fear of simply losing control, if you couldn’t already tell by the great acting… When we first read about Mr. Buchanan, I, and I’m assuming you as well, saw him as a jerk. But now I had the sincere chance to feel exactly what he’d felt, and I realized one thing. His arrogance came from fear . Standing in his shoes made it so clear to me that his anger what just an...

When we see a long essay, sometimes we just assume it’s solid or praiseworthy; but as we take a closer look at them, we notice the messy and unusually large handwriting, the grammatical errors, the sloppy format, and the sentences that don’t really flow well. Other stories can be short but carry a deep meaning within every line that gets us hooked and catches our attention. Stories always have a theme, and we can never determine it just by looking at a book, it has to be analyzed. And the same goes for people. From the outside, Tom Buchanan’s life looked flawless, like a glossy cover framed in 24 karat gold. He had it all. He was impractically rich, a well-known sports player, had a reputable wife, and more. But take a closer look, the inside tells a completely different story. We find out Tom is arrogant, racist, and clearly having a moral downfall. The marriage, not so good. Tom is openly cheating on his wife and potentially abusing her. Tom is moving places left and right, playing...