Shelem the bear

Shelem the Bear

            The flattened, matted hair of long aged past cover his small body. He goes everywhere with me, a security item just like Lionas' blanket on Snoopy. Floppy and emaciated he leans over pathetically. Elongated legs, like the branches of a weeping willow, dangle from the circle of my arms. He is missing a smooth russet bow so some strings hang from his stuffing-less neck. Flattened, by night after night of being rolled over onto, he appears to almost be 2-D. Beady, dark eyes stare softly into the distance. No sneer visible, no rude remarks to comment, just a comforting embrace.

            When a bad day rolls around, he always sits there on the bed, bent at an odd angle against the pillow ready for a cuddle or to sponge up salty tears. When a good day comes along, or just some good news, there he sits with his small furry ears ready to listen and hang onto every word that he is told.

            Smelling of dryer sheets, he reminds me of lonely afternoons when he went through a much needed wash. Coconut Lime and Amber Romance linger faintly in his fur. On top of all of that, you can also smell a faint scent of White Ginger and Nectarine shampoo.

            His stringy fur leaves marks on skin. Not smooth but not rough, he makes sleep possible. The stuffing has separated and become lumpy, making it an uneven pillow. Wet noodle like, he tends to flop around. Shelem has a milk chocolate fur that sparkles and shines, and makes him all the more special

A big bloody mess

My favorite scar came from a large blue glass that my brother knocked on to the floor. I was standing at the pantry and a piece about 3-4 inches long and 2 inches thick flew across the floor and embedded itself into my tender flesh of the inside of my foot. I didn’t notice it at first because it sliced through all of my layers of skin, the fatty tissue, my muscle, and the nerves, so I didn’t feel it. The only thing that alerted me to my situation was my brother’s strangled yell, and my mothers swearing (well not really). I looked down and I was standing in a HUGE puddle of my blood. When I say huge I mean really REALLY HUGE puddle. That is when I started to scream. I moved and the blood got all over my WHITE sundress. I just stood there crying and hollering like a lost puppy. My mom picked me up, wrapped my foot in a towel and herded my brothers to the car to drop them of at our friend's house so that she could take me to the ER. It was the longest ride of my life. 

When we got there my mom carried me to the doors then went back to park the car. An ambulance driver stopped by and asked what had happened. I told her in broken sobs and she asked if she could see the cut. I nodded and she uncovered the cut, and as soon as she had uncovered it, she covered it right back up and said "Yep you are going to have to get a lot of stitches." Then she ran off to get me a wheelchair. When we got in to the waiting area the ambulance driver ushered my mom and I ahead of the other waiting sick people and got me into a room really fast.

I had to wait less then 5 minutes to get a doctor and a nurse in to see my foot. He had the nurse take off the soaked towel and throw it away because it was unsalvageable because of all of the blood. He took one look at it then went out to get stuff for the stitches. He took out a syringe and looked at my mom. "You might want to hold your daughters hand for this." he said. He injected the numbing stuff in four different places and I left claw marks on my mom's arm. It hurt more than the cut did in the first place. 

After 30 minutes, I had ten dissolving stitches on the inside of my foot, and 8 on the outside. I had a really ugly blue foot boot type of thing,and had to be off my foot for two weeks, Then I had to walk on it for another three weeks. When we went to go take them out, they all got stuck in my foot and we had to pull them out, so I had to wear a wrap on my foot for a couple of days. I have a really awesome scar now and I love to show it off! 
         

Me as a writer

Laurel Jefferies

“Me as a Writer”

One of my first attempts at writing ended badly. I was sitting in kindergarten and my teacher decided that we were going to write poems. I thought, oh boy, oh boy! I get to write a poem! Yeah that was before the assistant teacher degraded my poem writing abilities. She came over to see what I was going to do my poem on, and looked to see that I had rhymed Dogs with Cogs. See looked at me and said, “Laurel you know that cogs is NOT a word (Yes it is!!!). You are going to have to write a different poem if you want credit.” Now you tell me what you would have done! A poor little 5 year old trying her hardest to write one of her first poems and her teacher hated it! Yeah I hated writing, poems in particular, for a long time.

A long time after that, about when I was in 6th grade I found out that my mom had written at least 7 books in high school and when I was a baby, but as life had gotten really busy she put it away. She had decided to start up again since her kids were a little older. She talked to me one day when I saw her writing on her laptop, and she told me that she had always loved writing, and that she wanted all of her kids to like it too. My mom was my earliest influence to love writing all over again. She has since then embraced all of my attempts at writing and continues to. Even if she has had to stay up till 2 a.m. with me and read my serial killer research paper over and over again as I scrambled to make my thoughts make sense on paper.

My writing behaviors change all the time. I write the best with my music playing softly, and a blank page on Microsoft Word. I hate having to start out and write on notebook paper, and I only do it when I am desperate. When it rains is when I write my VERY best. I don’t know what it is about the rain, but it makes the words flow. Writing narrative is my favorite. I can write at least 6 pages or more in one sitting if it is a narrative piece of work. One of my first narrative short stories was 33 pages long and 8,985 words long. I entered it into LTUE (Life the universe and everything else is a sci-fi and fantasy emporium at BYU) when I was in 9th grade, and won 1st place in the middle school division out of a hundred or so other writers. I just barely made it under the word count requirements which were 9,000 words. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to write. My mom made a little thing that I saw everyday when I sat down to write that was a little paper chair and a button glued to it. On the backside of the chair it said “Sit with you butt-on chair and write.”

I keep and have kept a lot of journals. I love going back and reading what I wrote back in first grade or so. I was really weird, and probably still am today, but maybe less so. I have noticed that my voice has matured a lot and I write more then what my favorite color is over and over again. I write about how my day was, the classes I am taking, and maybe even the teachers I hate at that point in time. Things that are fun to read and not so tedious.

My strengths in writing probably would have to be my ability to write description and characterization. My weaknesses are many, but I can’t think of any right now. Just kidding. Some of my weaknesses include speling. Oops I meant spelling. I used to be the little 3rd grader that got one word during the spelling bee and failed miserably. Another one of my weaknesses is my inability to write UBSCT (however it is spelled) essays. What can I say? I love the letter 'I'.

I think poor writers do not know how to use their personality in their writing. How to express what they are feeling at that point in time, or how to use the 5 senses. I have talked to a lot of writers and they say that having their characters in their heads help them to write also. My mom has this saying on her filing cabinet that says, “A lot of people in this world hear voices in their minds. Some are called crazy and they lock themselves away in little rooms were the bang their heads against the walls all day. The others are called writers and they pretty much do the same thing.”

The most important aspect of writing to me is liking what you write. It doesn’t matter if your kindergarten assistant teacher hates your poems, or if your junior English teacher hates your paper, all that does matter is what YOU think.