Dear Opl Read Online Free Page B

Couldn’t get enough air. “Why aren’t you here?” I panted. I squished my face into my pillow and wailed the question again, trying to push the words ahead of my panicky gasps for breath. I stopped, listening for an answer.
    No one heard me. No one ever did.
    I took a few more deep breaths, waiting for it to be easier. I wiped my eyes and sat up. I opened my laptop and went to a clean, white page. I needed to think about something else. Anything else. Homework or the maybe the blog. Eventually, the weight of an English assignment won out.
    English 8
    September 25th
    My Greatest Achievement Thus Far
    First of all, it’s necessary to define achievement. My online dictionary, Merriam-Webster , says it’s one of several possibilities.
    a.) a result gained by effort
    b.) a great or heroic deed
    c.) the quality and quantity of a student’s work
    If I answer with “a” in mind, I would say surviving PE class. There are few people who can breeze through the President’s Challenge fitness test. I have seen many people crash and burn during the dreadful few days when Coach screams at us to, “Overcome your bodies by utilizing your minds!”
    Most of us shrink when someone shouts in our ears to Move faster! or Stay up! or Get up! And frankly, hollering, “Move your big fat butt, toots!” when I jog past will only slow me down as I spend precious seconds swiveling my head back and forth to see who heard. This happens right before I plow into the person in front of me, tripping us and adding extra time to our Endurance Run score as well as scrapes to our knees.
    And if this isn’t bad enough, the Flexed-Arm Hang should be banished as a spectator test. It should be done in private. Some of us cannot keep our bodies in the air once you pull out the chair, no matter how many promises and prayers fill the space of the gymnasium. I have heard that angry parents phoned the school because of the chipped teeth their child received when their arms gave out after five or six seconds. There is no honor in sporting the President’s Badge with no teeth for the pictures.
    Now, if “b” is my definition, eating my grandfather’s icky Polish soup each year at Easter would fall into the category of great and heroic. This soup is called c zernina . You pronounce it chudnina or yuckola. It contains duck blood. Yes, the blood from a duck—who might not have even been finished using it himself.
    Lastly, look again at the final definition of “achievement” from old Merriam . The “quality” and “quantity” of a student’s work are two different things. Hugely different. Depending on who assigns the work, one is much more important than the other. Some days I can hand in three pages worth of sweat with impressive-sounding words, only to get it back the next day with the phrase, “Pure drivel” scrawled across it—although it could have been “Purple drizzle” because I found the teacher’s handwriting impossible to read. Other times I’ll churn out one measly paragraph and see my teacher tap-dance with glee. I don’t begin to understand the faculty, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with time-of-day grading. An under-caffeinated teacher can wreak havoc with my score.
    If teachers let us in on which they prefer—quality or quantity—we wouldn’t waste time guessing. Any chance you could discuss this at the next after-school faculty meeting? Answers will help us all breathe easier. If I succeed in fixing this school-wide dilemma, I would have to say it will be my greatest achievement thus far.
    I reread my English assignment for spelling errors and other fluff. I had to stop the flow of writing twice because my bladder screamed in my ear about its own flow.
    I decided it was good enough to hand in to Mr. Vandevart and also worthy of adding to my little blog diary. It showed a lot of complaining. I threw a