The Fishing Trip

By 25AustinL

Kersplash! I caught another one. So, it goes into the pail with the other ones. In the bucket of water, there was two (or three) dark figures gliding in the water. They were fish. Yup, fish (very scary). The fish were quite small at that. The tiny brown fish used to live in the murky waters of a marsh in Korea (That’s where I was). My family and I were under the hot sun trying to catch fish. At first I was like, “Why are we out here in the middle of summer?” But there I was on the side of lake with my small can of fish food (It smells really bad) fishing.

Everything was very green, like super green. Green plants, green-ish water, green-ish fish,and more green plants. I was also thinking, “Why is this water so dirty?” The answer came soon after. Suddenly a little wave rushed in and swept all of the dirt on the bottom of the lake! So the water got dirtier. Then, my grandpa yelled, “I got one! I got one!” in Korean. And surely enough there was a fish. That fish was the only medium sized fish we caught on the trip.

Then I hit the jackpot. My pole bent so much that I thought it was going to break! It swayed in circular movement, and my grandpa (who is an “expert” fisherman) ran over to help me. It was pulling us into the water, but when I reeled my catch up, I found a rock. It was brown and damp and had holes in it. It kind of broke all tension built up, but it was cool. Then everyone started laughing. We put the rock back into the murky water.

After we left the marshy area, we moved on to the ocean and tried our luck there. We bought some ice cream and some food and went on to the boat. The fishing boat was really shaky, but when were we on the fish farm, it was even more shaky. I didn’t fish in the farm, but instead, fished next to the farm. I saw massive coordinated movement under the water because to feed the fish in the farm, they throw in blocks of shrimp that slowly fall to the bottom. To keep the fish alive, they put nets under the farm, so the clean water can flow in but the fish can’t go out!

The shrimp float through the net and feeds the fish outside of the farm, so large amounts of fish build up there, which makes it a good fishing spot!

On my first try I got five fish on my five hooks! Slowly, my family and I caught 10 fish… 20 fish… 30 fish… 41 fish. The white box we put the fish in got really bloody because when the hook goes in, it makes a cut. You are supposed take it out so I did and from the cut, blood flows out and everywhere. I felt really seasick, so my mom gave her phone to me so I watched some videos for an hour. My family gave up trying to catch more fish so we headed back home.

On the way back, I saw that the dam was closed and people were down there collecting oysters. I was burned out and tired, but I was really proud of my catch of 5 at a time. When we got back to the hotel room, I went down to buy some ice cream (Korean ice cream is really good). I just played video games all night until dinner.That night I had fish for dinner.

Near-Fatality Beach Disaster

By 25LukeZ


Crash! Boom! Pffffwhhhhh! The waves rammed on the rocky shore. On the beach, I stood watching as my friends all were sitting in the sand, waiting for waves to pound on them. Next moment, whoooom! One monster wave, swirling with seaweed, piled down on the group. After the wave passed, my comrades were all laughing, and pushing each other. If only I had the chance to have some fun like they are, I thought. I just couldn’t help noticing all the seashells and coral pieces, shining in the sunlight. My urge to go in the ocean was just too strong.

In my head, I thought, the sea isn’t that negative, why do my parents not allow it? I yelled, ”Mom, I’m going in the water!” My mom told me to be careful, not to go too far into the water. I heeded her warning and continued to brave my way in the ocean. I made it about three feet into the ocean when someone called my name. I turned around, only to find my dad calling me, telling me to get out of the water. In the heat of that moment, a wave pushed me down on my butt, but not taking me under. I then noticed how beautiful the ocean was, swirling with kelp, seaweed, and coral.

Suddenly, happening in less than a bat of my eye, I went under. My instincts managed one giant splash before I actually sank to this sudden wave. Gurgle gurgle gurgle. A sneaking riptide swirled on me, pulling me under, pushing me out to the open sea. I would’ve drowned if my dad hadn’t seen my splash. Unfortunately, he was a little late. Before he got to me I thought, it’s over! Then I, Luke Zeng, passed out.

This is when my story swerves off to my dad’s report, because I mentioned that I passed out. The following actions, according to my dad, is what happened. Oddly, after I submerged, Dad noticed me and ran to my rescue. Not caring about his wallet, phone, or even his own safety, he barreled towards me, picking my body up. Everyone must’ve thought I had died. Luckily, after a few minutes, Dad heard me breathing, and knew everything was well.

Turns out, everything was not well. When we went back to the hotel, I thought, if my dad ran to me with his normal clothes, won’t his telephone be wet? I was one hundred ten percent correct. After we accessed the hotel room, Father took out a screwdriver and wrench to try and save his Iphone 4. Unfortunately, Apple phones can’t be opened, so he is stuck with a salty, wet fourth model of Iphone for the rest of the trip. I asked my dad, ”Father, will you switch your cell phone?” He just told me that Iphones were dumb, and that he was getting and Android phone.

That day we were stuck with only a flippy phone (my mom’s phone) for communication. I felt queasy, guilty, and a dash of fear of my father. My observations show that the beach, after my incident, put up warnings for riptides. Just as depressing as normal to me, Pop sulked for the entire day. I can tell, even through that, he still loves me. Nevertheless, he saved my life, and that receives my highest honor. Most of all, if it weren’t for him there wouldn’t be anything left of me.

Memoir

By: 25NatalieL

I couldn’t look. I shut my eyes. It was hard. We were sitting on the couch. I sat next to my mom. My dad was on the other side of the couch and my sister, she was on a “stool” in the corner. I was sad and scared. My heart skipped a beat; it was pounding fast. I was too scared to look. I glanced briefly at my mom, and we both had tears in our eyes. I finally turned my head.

I saw our dog (Oski) lying in my father's lap. He was still, other then his eyes looking at us innocently. Suddenly, there was a knock. A vet came in with a “nurse” with equipment. I held my breath. The vet said, “It’s going to be okay. It will be quick.” She took out some of the tools and looked at our dog, then us. I briefly looked at our dog, who was still lying there. It was soo sad that I started to cry.

Again the vet repeated, “It’s going to be okay.” My mom looked at me. I looked back, tears in my eyes. The nurse put a cloth under our dog’s back leg, then stuck the wire into Oski’s back leg. We watched at she injected a liquid from a tube into him. My mom started crying next to me. Slowly and painfully I watched as our dog had stuff injected into his body.. In my head I was thinking, “It’s going to be okay, It’s going to be ok, It’s going to be okay…”

I had begun to cry, so did my mom. I glanced at our dog one more time. He wasn’t moving anymore. I couldn’t look any longer, so I just cried into my mom’s shoulder. My mom hugged me again, but I looked away.

After a few minutes the nurse came back with two magazines; one was titled something like, How to Survive after Your Dog Dies. Another one was labeled something that I forgot. Afterwards, the nurse left us and Oski together in the small room. We watched Oski lie in my dad’s lap.

I sat there with my parents, yet after a few minutes, we went to walk out the door. We looked back at Oski one last time and walked out. This happened on October 4th, 2017, which is 4 days before my birthday. Even though it probably only lasted 20-30 minutes, it felt like 2 hours. It was a hard time, especially because my birthday was going to happen 4 days later.

Cinquain Poem

Click on the image to view it larger.

by 25SethW

Diamonte Poem

by 25RahulY

Flames

Dominant,negative

Scorching, Swooshing, Subjugating

Elemental, Inferno, Blizzard, Coincidence

Freezing, Hailing, Confiding

Glacial, Explosive

Snow

ABC Poem

Music of the 1930´s

by 25AnanyaD

All

you can see is the bent backs over a vast sea of wisps of wheat that are struggling to support their bare bodies.

But when the we gather for music we sit on our rusty and rickety chairs and sing

Crackly the voices seem but they are music to our ears, to hear Pa sing while he strums the guitar was rare.

Determined to give us entertainment he switches from guitar to fiddle, back and forth to create a small blues swing. Ma wipes tears from her face , thinking about how hard he worked during the day.

Everlasting the music was, though it was only a few strums. In my ears the music was there but a whole new realm of music lept in left to discover.