Julie's Essay

Julie Philippe
Mr. H. Salsich
English 9
December 10th, 2008

Into The Unknown
-an essay based on a notable experience during my life

As I looked out of the plane window, all I could hear were the countless beats that my watch made. I remember the sky was bright blue, without a cloud, without a breeze. Everything in that plane seemed so peaceful and quiet, almost too stagnant. After seven long hours of stillness, we were finally there. We were here to start a new life, a new beginning that would soon become the best experience of my life.


TS It was just yesterday that I was running around the yard playing with Barbie dolls with my best friend worrying about nothing other than if I had learned my multiplication table. But nine years later, I find myself graduating from ninth grade in a brand new country. SD One day, my mother, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, announced to the family that she had lost her job in France and we would be moving to the United States of America (S-V split participial phrase). CM Thoughts came rushing through my mind and my heart started beating. CM Was she really serious? SD My feelings were beyond words, beyond sentences and at the time, this was the impossible. CM I could only envisage the negative side of my situation. CM I would lose my friends with whom I organized tea parties with, I would lose the culture that I had learned to love so much, I would lose the house that had put a roof over my head since I came into the world, without even knowing that I would gain so much more. CS For nothing in the whole world, would I change this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.


TS The biggest question I have always asked myself since I have arrived is: What did I do to deserve this? SD Our lives are filled with questions and I certainly know that my question has no answer. CM My grandma always told me “everything always happens for a reason” and I never realized the power of those words until I came here. CM I believe that the opportunity to live a dream like this one happened for a reason. SD One day, I entered my new fourth grade classroom, only to see that twenty-five pairs of eyes were looking straight at me, as if they had never seen such a person before. CM Was I really that different? CM Trying to answer this question of a painful moment like such makes me stronger even though I am aware that such a question could not be answered. CS In life, there is always a mystery behind everything that makes life so much more exciting.


Since I moved to the United States, I learned to take life day by day and live it to the fullest because I know that in the blink of an eye, it could be all over. I have had good days and bad days, but I am so grateful for what I was able to live so far and to accomplish. All these people that I have met throughout my five years in the United States have showed me that one has to work to be good. These people have opened my eyes to the fact that we only have one life and every opportunity we get only comes once. Opportunity opened my eyes, but my eyes have opened opportunity (CHIASMUS).
_____________________________________________
Self- Assessment
1. What do you like best about your essay?
The one thing I like about my essay is that I didn't reapeat myself and I stayed on the topic. I think that my essay flowed pretty well too.

2. What was the hardest part of this essay?
The hardest part of this essay is that I wanted to put so much information about my journey, but I didn't know how to put it all in and making it flow well.