Day One Week: Personal Narrative

We stay at the beach for a day and have a lot of fun together. Dylann's eyes glow and I've never seen him this happy. The whole day was magical.

It started as typical Tuesday with a couple of court hearings, maybe an arrest, but nothing to exciting. That all changed at dawn.

It was the summer between my eighth grade graduation and the start of my first year of high school that my family and I left behind our city dwelling first-floor three-bedroom apartment on a one-way street in Connecticut to the rurally side stacked townhomes and sub-divisions of Virginia. I had not put much thought into why we moved or what might come of moving. I did come to the conclusion that this move would be “better for us” as my mom would say because through copious amounts of research she discovered that the education provided would master that of our public school system where not all students had the books they needed in order to learn and even do homework. As the night transcended and we packed into our vehicles it was

We've come to an agreement that will make everyone happy." At this point in time the realization hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. I wasn't sure if I could handle the four words that were about to come out of her mouth.

“How can a game have such an effect on a man’s soul?” – Robert Duvall, Seven Days in Utopia.

I waited in the flickering fluorescent light of the small Saint Paul bus station while the indifferent ticketing agent looked over my ID then processed my reservation on the computer.

When I open my eyes, I'm taken my surprise. For the first time in a long time. I don't wake up to the sound of my phone going off, but rather, the sound of muttering coming from Zach's Kitchen I can't be sure, but to me it sounds like Fredrick , why would he be here this early in the morning? I ask myself.

I have never looked up information about the day I was born, but The Day newspaper and my family supplied plenty of interesting information. I was born on December 24, 1997, in Phoenix, Arizona. I moved to Kentucky in 2000; therefore, I was too young to remember living there. Some people think that being a Christmas Eve baby is cool. Except they don’t understand what it’s like when your family members combine your birthday and Christmas presents together.

As far back as I can remember I've always looked for a new memory to make, a new image to look at and not forget. This is one of the most important to me because it is my first big one. It's truly spectacular what nature looks like, what it can do, and the feelings it brings out in us.

My mother would start the mornings with a “Levantese que hay mucho que hacer”, in translation, “Wake up there is so much to do today”. Every day, the wakeup call was at 5:30 in the morning and it started with a list of chores. Occasionally, we would sleep until 7:30 in the morning on the weekends to more chores and whatever else was on the list. My mother was regimental and the “A” typical Latina mother, very old school. Not a day went by where my brother and me didn’t do chores and helped around the house. Lord forbit that she would have to repeat herself twice on our individual chores. She constantly reminded me that one day I would become a wife and would have to know how to take care of my family, “A man does not like a lazy wife and you would want to stay married to the same man you have exchanged vowels with”, she would say. Seeing that she was remarried two times already, I did not understand why she would expect it from me. None -the-less, I did what I was told and without any galivanting I accomplished every task assigned to me.

My eyes darted to the clock. 3:10 a.m. Still, I couldn't sleep. Frustrated, I combed my fingers through my hair. I couldn't make this interface work properly. I dissected the code line by line, but, after another hour, I finally gave up, telling myself that I could solve it the next day.

The sun is shining through the little holes in the roof of our house when I wake up. Well, I suppose you can't wake up if you didn't sleep. Sleeping was not an option, even considering how exhausted I was from working in the fields yesterday. The nightmares of my brothers reaping day would have been to overwhelming because today is the reaping for the 80th hunger games. This is my fourth reaping so I know what to expect. As I quietly drag myself off my "bed" (hay-stuffed mattress on the floor with a hand made blanket and hay-stuffed pillow) and begin to get dressed when I hear a knock at the front door. The perfectly timed, yet simple: knock, knock, pause, knock lets me know that my best friend is at the door. I hurry to zipper a dress that I received as a "gift" for my first reaping since we couldn't afford a new one. It's a lavender dress that is too short for my still growing "tree legs," as my peers like to call them. The dress cuts low and would show my cleavage if I had more than a size a-cup. After looking quickly in the mirror at my face and hair, I answer the door.

Hey this is James and my sister and I are going to be telling you the story. I was down stairs eating breakfast when school bus pulled up. “ Rose! Hurry up the school bus is here.” “ I’m coming’’ Rose screamed clearly irritated from her tone. Rose ran down stairs in a blue t-shirt and basketball-shorts her dirty blonde hair in a ponytail. She carried Emy her cat and set her down next to her food. Emy eagerly ate her food as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. We both ran to the bus and sat in our seats as usual mom wasn’t there that morning because she was at work dealing with impatient people. Her job was consoling for adults or man children as I like to put it. We didn’t have any classes with each other. Rose and I were twins we were both in sixth

One day my Aunt Karla, who is on my mom’s side of the family, went to work at the airport. Then, she went on lunch break with her husband Grant. As they were eating, their favorite game show Wheel of fortune came on T.V.. As they were watching the game show they won tickets to be in the audience. Low and behold, they got called on to the stage! While playing the game they won a trip to Maui! Aunt Kalra and Uncle Grant went swimming with sharks, surfing, and scuba diving while they were in Maui. In one of the restaurants they ate at, the floor was made of glass and there were sharks swimming under them while they were eating. Then when they got home they still had a lot of money left over.

At precisely 4:30, I wake up, stretch, then go downstairs and make my amazing breakfast: a small bowl of white rice, a small cup of herbal tea, and one of my favorite fortune cookies. The fortune read: “This Week Will Be A Good Week.” I believed it and trusted it. After my breakfast I went back into my bedroom to get changed for work. I worked at a clothing manufacturing plant that had recently been redesigned to support the war effort. We used to make clothes for the public, but for now we make ammunition, with special sections making uniforms. These were needed to fight the Allies. I had no personal opinion or hate for them, but the emperor releases frequent propaganda encouraging the fight against them. He has to have a reason the go against them. So I'll go with him and help the war effort.