And with this, my junior year is over
Guh.
Anyway, final two journal prompts underneath the cut.
Memoir as someone who has served as a mentor to you in some way.
Mr. Beamer
Describe the person - what they did. Try to evoke in the reader, the same sensation the mentor evoked in you.
From day one, I knew I would like my homeroom teacher. We introduced ourselves, and I stumbled my name, hands shaking: A scared girl on her first day of high school. "All right, then," Alan Beamer said, clapping his hands together. "I'm going to briefly outline the rules of homeroom and then let you guys mingle. I'm not going to pass out those surveys asking what you want to do, what you want to be when you grow up, and what the best thing you did this summer was, because, honestly guys? I don't care that much." I laughed, and he flashed a bright grin at me, and I instantly relaxed.
I didn't have many people that I liked in homeroom. I had two friends, one of whom I still consider a brother. He left after freshman year, too afraid to come out publicly as homosexual - only after he left the school did he admit it to everyone else. (Myself, on the other hand, he told a month into school). So while the popular kids talked about sports and the latest episode of The Office, I would hang out by Mr. Beamer and his laptop, sitting on his lab table and swinging my legs - the two of us just shooting the shit. If he had to work, I'd put my iPod in. We weren't supposed to have them our during school hours: He didn't care. Sometimes the two of us would end up talking for so long it would cut well into classtime. Tristan (the aforementioned friend) would usually be there too. Mr. Beamer would write us notes to get us out of class, apologize up and down, and swear he wouldn't make us miss any more. This happened once every couple of weeks.
Sophomore year rolled around, and Mr. Beamer greeted me with a grin and a handshake, and asked how my summer was. Pleasantly surprised, we talked long into homeroom - Mr. Beamer ended up taking attendance in the last thirty seconds before sending me off. He told me to say hi to Tristan, and that he missed having him around. I saw him later that day - I'd wound up in his Chemistry class.
Mr. Beamer was quite frank in his teaching style. If someone was too much of an interruption, he would send them out for the duration of class. That would be it. If you didn't understand after a few examples, he would explain it as long as it needed to be. He drew pictures whenever necessary, making fun of his own art style. "Don't try to chew gum, guys," he told us the first day of class. "Sometimes students try to be all sneaky and chew slowly and quietly - it's hilarious. You guys look like cows chewing cud when you do that. I'll just make you spit it out."
I was terrible at science, of any kind. Especially the kind that required intensive math. Chemistry was more than enough to bring me to tears, but Mr. Beamer and I worked out a schedule. Every Thursday, I would arrive a half hour before homeroom, and we would sit and work through concepts that I didn't understand. It's due to him that I even passed Chemistry. "I hate this!" I burst out, once, then covered my mouth, absolutely horrified. He simply grinned at me. "It's all right," he said after I apologized profusely. "It's not everyone's thing. I've read your stuff: You're a writer, through and through. Math and science just don't click. I'm not offended." A shrug and an eyeroll. "Why would I be? I love this stuff. But what I do with molecules, you do with words. I couldn't write like you in my entire life, no matter how hard I tried. And you couldn't teach this to kids. That's how it is. I know you're trying your hardest, and that's all that really counts. Well, at least in my books. Your grades won't be great, but I do award students for trying. Just don't leave your answers blank, and you'll get credit."
For Halloween, he taught his AP students while wearing a blonde wig and adopted a fake persona, all while saying "dahling." that should've been my first clue, but I've never actively gone looking for someone's sexual preferences. The other students called it creepy; I thought it was funny. He also wore red contacts, giving him the eeriest looking eyes, and burst out laughing whenever I looked at him and shrieked. For Christmas, he taught his AP students how to make caramel. I had a free period during that time, so I was usually seated in front of my locker in the Science Wing, working. He wandered out and gestured me over. "Want to make some caramel with us?" he asked. I grinned and practically bolted inside the classroom, finding my best friend at the time and leaving my Spanish homework abandoned in front of my locker. Later that day, he gave anyone who actually showed up extra credit. "For you troopers."
"Sir, I love you," one student said, moving to hug him.
"Whoa whoa whoa," he laughed, backing up and waving his hands. "Save the hugs for whenever you graduate. I'm not losing my job because I 'inappropriately interacted with a student.'"
After class, I looked at him. "Graduation, can I have a hug?" I asked sheepishly. After a moment, he smiled.
"Absolutely."
Alan Beamer was like an uncle to me, really. My parents loved him, and really appreciated that someone was looking out for me; my friendship with my best friend was starting to get rocky, and in the following years it would spiral into an abusive psychological mess. I wonder how I would have fared if Mr. Beamer hadn't disappeared in the middle of junior year without a by-your-leave.
We'd been transferred to a new homeroom for some unexplained reason, and I kicked and screamed the entire way. I still stopped by his room every morning to talk to him before I had to head upstairs to my new homeroom teacher. After school officially started, however, we both got caught up in our work. Then, shortly before Christmas break, he just disappeared.
Nobody knew what happened to him. Teachers were tight-lipped, and students openly praised his departure: "He was insane, anyway, and a terrible teacher."
A small group of us, who were close to him, defended him fiercely, until only me and a couple of my friends were left. We were the final graduating class.
Afterwards, I discovered he'd been fired on flimsy ground, and it was actually due to him being a colored homosexual. I have yet to hear from Alan Beamer, and I still miss him terribly. All I can think is that I never got my graduation hug from the person who taught me so much about molecular structure. And life.
Analyze your own literary style - what is your writing like?
My style is very, very emotional. I tend to make attachments and try to slow the moment down to get every bit of emotion across. As stated in a previous entry, I think certain details and snapshots. I try to memorize every detail in that snapshot and put it on the page - sometimes I add in unnecessary details or superfluous things, but I try to fully immerse my reader in the surrounding. I want them to have as much of an emotional connection to the important moments as I do.
Anyway, final two journal prompts underneath the cut.
Memoir as someone who has served as a mentor to you in some way.
Mr. Beamer
Describe the person - what they did. Try to evoke in the reader, the same sensation the mentor evoked in you.
From day one, I knew I would like my homeroom teacher. We introduced ourselves, and I stumbled my name, hands shaking: A scared girl on her first day of high school. "All right, then," Alan Beamer said, clapping his hands together. "I'm going to briefly outline the rules of homeroom and then let you guys mingle. I'm not going to pass out those surveys asking what you want to do, what you want to be when you grow up, and what the best thing you did this summer was, because, honestly guys? I don't care that much." I laughed, and he flashed a bright grin at me, and I instantly relaxed.
I didn't have many people that I liked in homeroom. I had two friends, one of whom I still consider a brother. He left after freshman year, too afraid to come out publicly as homosexual - only after he left the school did he admit it to everyone else. (Myself, on the other hand, he told a month into school). So while the popular kids talked about sports and the latest episode of The Office, I would hang out by Mr. Beamer and his laptop, sitting on his lab table and swinging my legs - the two of us just shooting the shit. If he had to work, I'd put my iPod in. We weren't supposed to have them our during school hours: He didn't care. Sometimes the two of us would end up talking for so long it would cut well into classtime. Tristan (the aforementioned friend) would usually be there too. Mr. Beamer would write us notes to get us out of class, apologize up and down, and swear he wouldn't make us miss any more. This happened once every couple of weeks.
Sophomore year rolled around, and Mr. Beamer greeted me with a grin and a handshake, and asked how my summer was. Pleasantly surprised, we talked long into homeroom - Mr. Beamer ended up taking attendance in the last thirty seconds before sending me off. He told me to say hi to Tristan, and that he missed having him around. I saw him later that day - I'd wound up in his Chemistry class.
Mr. Beamer was quite frank in his teaching style. If someone was too much of an interruption, he would send them out for the duration of class. That would be it. If you didn't understand after a few examples, he would explain it as long as it needed to be. He drew pictures whenever necessary, making fun of his own art style. "Don't try to chew gum, guys," he told us the first day of class. "Sometimes students try to be all sneaky and chew slowly and quietly - it's hilarious. You guys look like cows chewing cud when you do that. I'll just make you spit it out."
I was terrible at science, of any kind. Especially the kind that required intensive math. Chemistry was more than enough to bring me to tears, but Mr. Beamer and I worked out a schedule. Every Thursday, I would arrive a half hour before homeroom, and we would sit and work through concepts that I didn't understand. It's due to him that I even passed Chemistry. "I hate this!" I burst out, once, then covered my mouth, absolutely horrified. He simply grinned at me. "It's all right," he said after I apologized profusely. "It's not everyone's thing. I've read your stuff: You're a writer, through and through. Math and science just don't click. I'm not offended." A shrug and an eyeroll. "Why would I be? I love this stuff. But what I do with molecules, you do with words. I couldn't write like you in my entire life, no matter how hard I tried. And you couldn't teach this to kids. That's how it is. I know you're trying your hardest, and that's all that really counts. Well, at least in my books. Your grades won't be great, but I do award students for trying. Just don't leave your answers blank, and you'll get credit."
For Halloween, he taught his AP students while wearing a blonde wig and adopted a fake persona, all while saying "dahling." that should've been my first clue, but I've never actively gone looking for someone's sexual preferences. The other students called it creepy; I thought it was funny. He also wore red contacts, giving him the eeriest looking eyes, and burst out laughing whenever I looked at him and shrieked. For Christmas, he taught his AP students how to make caramel. I had a free period during that time, so I was usually seated in front of my locker in the Science Wing, working. He wandered out and gestured me over. "Want to make some caramel with us?" he asked. I grinned and practically bolted inside the classroom, finding my best friend at the time and leaving my Spanish homework abandoned in front of my locker. Later that day, he gave anyone who actually showed up extra credit. "For you troopers."
"Sir, I love you," one student said, moving to hug him.
"Whoa whoa whoa," he laughed, backing up and waving his hands. "Save the hugs for whenever you graduate. I'm not losing my job because I 'inappropriately interacted with a student.'"
After class, I looked at him. "Graduation, can I have a hug?" I asked sheepishly. After a moment, he smiled.
"Absolutely."
Alan Beamer was like an uncle to me, really. My parents loved him, and really appreciated that someone was looking out for me; my friendship with my best friend was starting to get rocky, and in the following years it would spiral into an abusive psychological mess. I wonder how I would have fared if Mr. Beamer hadn't disappeared in the middle of junior year without a by-your-leave.
We'd been transferred to a new homeroom for some unexplained reason, and I kicked and screamed the entire way. I still stopped by his room every morning to talk to him before I had to head upstairs to my new homeroom teacher. After school officially started, however, we both got caught up in our work. Then, shortly before Christmas break, he just disappeared.
Nobody knew what happened to him. Teachers were tight-lipped, and students openly praised his departure: "He was insane, anyway, and a terrible teacher."
A small group of us, who were close to him, defended him fiercely, until only me and a couple of my friends were left. We were the final graduating class.
Afterwards, I discovered he'd been fired on flimsy ground, and it was actually due to him being a colored homosexual. I have yet to hear from Alan Beamer, and I still miss him terribly. All I can think is that I never got my graduation hug from the person who taught me so much about molecular structure. And life.
Analyze your own literary style - what is your writing like?
My style is very, very emotional. I tend to make attachments and try to slow the moment down to get every bit of emotion across. As stated in a previous entry, I think certain details and snapshots. I try to memorize every detail in that snapshot and put it on the page - sometimes I add in unnecessary details or superfluous things, but I try to fully immerse my reader in the surrounding. I want them to have as much of an emotional connection to the important moments as I do.