5 PaRaGrApHs

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It was a stormy Friday night, nothing extremely out of the ordinary. Neither one of us knew what that night would hold, or how much we would have changed. I can still smell the buttery scent of popcorn popping in the microwave and hear the fizz releasing from the freshly opened bottle of coke. Looking through the stack of movies on the side table and hearing the faint voice of my sister on the phone I finally decided on one and called on her to join me in the living room. This would be the beginning of a night we would not soon forget. (This would be considered a Cheek and Irony essay)

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Everyone has a secret. Everyone has a dark place, a place they like to keep hidden from the world. It wasn’t until I realized how much this dark place would affect my future when I finally started to acknowledge its presence and deal with it. I always thought I would just leave, go to college and forget that part of me, that it would just disappear, and leave me be. But in college is when I realized that everyone had secrets, everyone had darkness within. My first year there would leave an everlasting impression and I would go on a different person. It all started with the secrets….the darkness. (This would be considered The Past, the Local, and the Melancholy and Honesty, Confession, and Privacy kind of essays)

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Going through hard times is part of life, it’s inevitable, but when it involves family the stakes seem to be higher. Family is supposed to be there when hard times fall upon us, not the reason for it. Where do we go, what do we do? It all started before I was born, but somehow the past affected my future and how I would go on to view things in life and the person I was to become. The experiences I have had have had indeed helped me to become strong and independent, but sometimes I wonder if it was worth it. His name is Will, and here is my story. (This would be considered the same as above)




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I opened the door to the odor of beer, water boiling, and a combination I just wasn’t familiar with. You could smell the tension. I heard pans clinging and my mother and father speaking loudly in the kitchen. I made my way to the kitchen where all the racket and odor was coming from and saw the refrigerator door was open, but inside it was empty. All the condiments and everything else were laying out on the table and counter tops. A twenty pack stood by my father’s feet and it appeared I had just walked in on an argument. Dinner was cooking, but I knew so much more than that was brewing up in that kitchen and I really didn’t want to be there to see it boil over. (This is Cheek and Irony)

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We heard a knock on the door. We all four looked at each other in excitement. Who could it be, we hadn’t meant that many people just yet. It was our first day on campus and we were all moving in and getting settled. None of us knew each other and we were having fun just getting to do just that. When we heard the knocking we all looked around to see who was going to get up to answer the door. One of the roommates, Lora, did and we were not disappointed. Two rather handsome boys walked in and introduced themselves. “Hello, I’m Josiah and this is my roommate Dustin. We were just walking by and heard someone knocking at us through the window so we thought we would come up and say hi”. We all talked for a while and got to know each other but who would have thought I was going to marry one of these boys someday. (This is a little of all of them, except Quotation and the Uses of Learning)