an example

[Prompt: Describe a place or event in your childhood and its effect on you.]

In Stonewood, my former neighborhood, Christmas was a constant -- secure and warm and filled with bright lights and comforting smells. I spent each December evening staring out of my bedroom window at the Christmas lights that decorated the houses on my street. Finally, on Christmas Eve, I would journey over to the house on the corner, the house that consistently had the brightest, prettiest lights in the neighborhood, and prepare to decorate the largest fir tree I’d ever seen fit inside a living room. This house belonged to the family of my best friend Julia, a spunky Puerto Rican girl who always wore a cross around her neck and a trendy slap-bracelet on her wrist. As soon as I arrived each Christmas Eve, Julia and I would start unpacking the hundreds of ornaments from the big satin-lined boxes she kept in her closet all year. I remember the reds and greens, the shiny ornaments, and the fake holly we used to decorate the wrought-iron stairway railing. The security and warmth I felt at Julia’s on those evenings lasted all year in Stonewood and now keep my former neighborhood in my heart.

The beauty of Stonewood lay in its imperfections. No two houses were alike: a blue Victorian stood next to a two-story modern. Some of the houses had attics, some had pools, and one even had a fountain outside. The houses had been built in the early 1970s, and most suffered from chipping paint, splintered wood, and avocado-green paneling. Julia's house had marble floors, a pool, and a dock. We spent our summers ranging between her backyard and mine. In hers, we could swing on the jungle gym or watch fireworks over the lake; mine boasted a sandbox and the best climbing trees. When lightning struck down the tallest oak, my friends came by to mourn the loss.

Most of the children my age lived in the houses near mine, towards the back of Stonewood. We spent summers running through sprinklers, hopped into piles of leaves in the fall, sang carols in the winter, and ran from family pool to family pool in the spring. Sometimes we played tag in the street. Most of our time was spent exploring backyards and climbing fences and trees. The environment was nurturing, encouraging exploration and discovery. I loved riding my bicycle up and down the dips in the road, canoeing on the lake behind Julia’s house, watching the tree outside my bedroom window change its colors each fall, singing at the top of my lungs (asking Julia if I might be a great soprano some day), and stepping outside at 6 a.m. with the rest of the neighborhood to stand and stare to the east as the space shuttle took off into an orange sky.

Though the houses and backyards of our neighborhood provided endless entertainment, what happened inside these houses was more important. The most memorable home for me was the Smith house, up on the hill above ours. This was the home where I slept, blissfully unaware, the night my mother went into labor in 1990. I woke up the next morning to murmurs of “little boy” coming from the Smiths' kitchen.

Even today, I still dream of the neighborhood, as well as the experiences I had there, but mostly, I dream of my house. Sometimes it is reflected perfectly: quaint, two stories with balconies on either side, white, with French doors and green shingles, beige carpeting and low ceilings, turquoise tile and a pink leather couch. And sometimes, the house is a sad shadow of how it used to be: dark, broken, empty, and unused. When I dream of the house in this state, I wake up and want to return to it. I have spoken to my former neighbors, and they tell me I wouldn’t recognize the house from the inside. The three families who have lived there since we moved out have torn down walls, ripped up carpets, and re-painted. It’s their right; it’s their house. But my home -- the house I once lived in -- is still clear in my mind.

The neighborhood has changed, as all things do. The homes have been repainted, the roads flawlessly paved, and when the children explore the neighborhood, they have new jungle gyms to play on. As Stonewood edges toward that craved perfection typical of the times, it travels further from that image I still hold of it in my heart, with all the dear imperfections that I loved. Not all of the memories are beautiful, but they are, indelibly, mine.

nonsense story~ pay attention to words

Do I have to endure such experience? Does the involvement of such elements during the activity will extract the best out of me? I am no intrepid person, who dared everything in his path, realizing dangerous and death wait for him or so it seemed to be. To someone, it is onerous yet for others, it's like a piece of cake. Coercion is certainly not an option. The act of force and pressure only fire up the buried rages of a person. But in certain cases, it is applicable.

One who is hounded by such things keeps losing his mental capability as well damaging and breaking his own physical edge. The discussion on the problem must be unfurled and expanded widely so that different perspectives could be obtained and concluded into one effective resolution to the problem. If the problem is still lingering around and could not be reduced or lessen, then the taken step should be reconsidered or perhaps, be abolished so the new method to take care out of the problem could be carried on.

It is useless to shred people's idea, tearing it up to voice out the disagreement or dissatisfaction. It is uncivilized action from a person who is considered a cream out of crop. Instead, one should improve the idea or perhaps modify it to fit his/her ideas for the better result at the end of the day. A rejection is not an end. It means better idea. It is an ordeal to an organization that had such people. The nightmare and the tribulation might hunt the society of having such persons. After all it all boils down to deep scrutiny or judgement on oneself before he/she is given a task. The mediocrity of a job then can be used as a final judgement of that person. And so the other way round.

eloquence of words

wordscrutiny is compiled from a word "word" and "scrutiny". Everybody knows what "word" is. While for "scrutiny", it equals to analysis, inspection or examination. For me, I address the word "scrutiny" as analysis in which if combined with "word" would derive a concept of words definitions from different angles and including the free-perspective experimentation on the usage of the particular word.

I myself no a perfect person whose life is just like others. I am no genius or ever cleverer than Mr. Einstein nor I am dumb or dumber than virtually existed Mr. Bean. So, if there's a mistake, inaccuracy or error in my written words, feel free to shout out and correct me. All comments are welcomed and will never be deleted (except if the comments are way too harsh to interpret).