Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Perils of Pursuing What We Most Desire
Blog Journal Entry: Have you ever wanted something so badly that you pursued it indirectly and even secretly instead of directly or overtly? If so, what? How did it effect you and those around you and involved? Please respond in 7-10 THOUGHTFUL AND WELL-CONSTRUCTED SENTENCES. Thank you.
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When I was about 7 or 8, one of the best things in the world to me was sparkling apple cider. Sparkling apple cider was usually exclusively drank at holidays and but it was January so I was aware that my tongue would not taste a drip of apple cider until Thanksgiving. My craving for sparkling apple cider was so strong, I couldn’t sleep from the saliva that was being produced in my watering mouth. After midnight I looked in every cabinet for the non-existent sparkling apple cider. Alas, I found a yellow bottle that read sparkling apple cider in the kitchen cabinet. It was almost full too. I thought I outwitted everyone and that no one knew of my secret apple cider. In the heat of the moment, I drunk the amber elixir. BLAH! My taste buds jumped. Something wasn’t right. Unlike sparkling apple cider, the poison burned my throat. It was the antithesis of sparkling apple cider. I read the bottle again. Blinded by greed and impatience, I didn’t read everything on the bottle. It read Apple Cider Vinegar. After being left without any sparkling apple cider and having the aftertaste of apple cider vinegar in my mouth, I sat down onto the floor and basking in shame. After seeing my mom clean with the apple cider vinegar a few days later, I told her about my embarrassing moment. I wasn’t punished, but laughed at because drinking the Apple Cider Vinegar was enough of a consequence.
ReplyDeleteI have a clear memory of being invited to a peers 7th birthday party, held at her house. My mother took me to Toys R Us to find her a gift. I decided to give her something I really wanted for myself and ignored her desired gifts altogether. I spent a long time in the Barbie aisle trying to decide what to give her. I settled on a ballerina Barbie wearing purple point shoes and a purple tutu. The day of the party, I gazed longingly at the box before wrapping it. At the last minute I switched the ballerina with 3 pairs of mix-matched Barbie doll shoes and a tiny stuffed animal with one eye, which my baby brother loved to teethe on. My mother discovered what I had done when she saw how small the present was in comparison to the ballerina. I was forced into apologizing to my peer and I had to give her my ballerina doll as well.
ReplyDeleteSo when I was about eight years old my mom had a gift closet for birthday presents and such. So one day my mom comes home with a gift for the gift closet that was the one thing that I really really wanted. The gift was this Nerf gun that was pretty much what every eight year old I knew wanted. Now the thing about this gift closet is that that pretty much none of the gifts were ever given to me and this Nerf gun I just had to have. At first I thought that I could just wait until Christmas which was about a month and a half away. Then the temptation became too much so I thought about just taking it when my mom wasn't looking and hope that she wouldn't notice. So one day while my mom was upstairs I snuck into her room where the gift closet was and took the Nerf gun out of the closet. At this point my mom starts coming down the stairs with me completely oblivious while I admired my spoils. Then my mom walked in and caught me red handed. I was completely busted and was sent to my room while my mom thought of an appropriate punishment.
ReplyDeleteA couple weeks ago my mother was attempting to make jerk chicken. It turned out to be drop down delicious my mouth craved for its taste. Surprised with my reaction she made some more for a party on the weekend. Unfortunately my desires for this deliectable dish was too great. I ended up eating a little bit day by day. Finally it was party time and hwne my mother was ready to take it to the party, half of the platter was gone like magic. My mother gave me a good whipping before saying she would make me some more so i wouldn't eat the chicken for the guests. In the end it was definitely worth the punishment i long for that chicken every day.
ReplyDeleteIt was the candy I wanted. It was in the drawer just below the family microwave, the so-called “snack drawer”. I had been craving a bite of the amazing cotton candy that had arrived in a package from my grandmother that very day. I knew that by the end of the day, I would have figured out a way to get that cotton candy. This wasn’t so easy as it sounded, considering the “no deserts on weekdays” rule that existed at the time. I plotted, with my elementary level mind, how to get a chunk of that fluff into my mouth before the day was done. I, with extreme difficulty, managed to conceal my desire for those sugar clouds while my family ate dinner. After clearing the table my parents slowly drifted off to other rooms of the house. They seemed to take forever; picking up one last plate, wiping of remaining crumbs, and making comments to each other and me. I answered every question with a smile and quick response, but I didn’t think I could take it much longer. Finally, they all left. I was alone, the whole kitchen left for me to do whatever I liked. I slowly opened the drawer, making no noise, and looked at the huge silvery bag that contained the cotton candy I longed for. I quickly opened the bag and grabbed a handful. I scurried up the stairs to try to get to my room so that I could finally consume the sugary goodness. I had almost made it when my mom appeared and said,
ReplyDelete“Laurel, come get your stuff off the stairs.” I froze, why hadn’t I put away my books? This was a bump in the road I had not expected.
“Wait one second,” was my quickly improvised response.
“You always say that, and it never gets done,” my mother replied, “Come get it now!” Not knowing what else to do, I stuffed the candy into my mouth and turned around to get my stuff. My mother, of course immediately knew what I had done. I was lightly reprimanded, and I returned to my room candy-less and ashamed. This incident made me less trustworthy to my mother. It affected our relationship of trust and made every package of candy from my grandmother a cause for suspicion.
Two weeks before my 14th birthday, my parents asked me what I wanted as a gift. There were so many things that I wanted, but I knew that I wouldn't possibly get everything. I finally made my decision. I decided that I would like an electric guitar. It took my parents a very long time to agree because they said that I would lose interest in academics and just focus on my music. We finally made an agreement; they would buy me the guitar if I earned straight A's for the rest of my school year. I knew that would be easy because my birthday is on May 16th, and school ended like May 18th. My parents had bought me the guitar already; they didn't tell me, but I saw them receive it from the UPS mailman. Later that night, my parents left to the hospital because my mom's stomach was hurting really bad at like 10 p.m. Of course, I opened the guitar. It looked amazing. It had a glossy black body with a maplewood neck. It was beautiful. I was extremely excited to get it the next day, but sadly, I fell asleep, forgetting to place it inside the package. The next morning, my parents came into my room and woke me up singing happy birthday. Honestly, I didn't even listen because I just wanted my guitar. They finally told me that I wouldn't get it until the next week. I was extremely disappointed, but I learned my lesson.
ReplyDeleteOne summer my cousins and I were all visiting at our grandparents house. My grandparents can be very strict when it comes to the tidiness of their house and eating food outside of the kitchen. It was my aunt and uncle's anniversary so we had apple cider and apple pie. We had always liked to plan spy missions and we wanted to have our own party in the upstairs bedroom with the cider and pie. We spent quite a while figuring out how to execute our mission to secretly take the pie and cider to the upstairs bedroom so that we could defy my grandparent's rules. Giggling and being exceptionally loud and suspicious my cousins and I advanced towards the kitchen. They made me the designated spy to actually take the cider and pie, as I was the youngest. It was all fun and games as we bolted up the pristine carpeted stairs with our new treasure. Finding out before our mission even took place, my parents and my aunt and uncle humored us because they were not nearly as serious about my grandparent's house as the owners were. My grandfather in particular was highly annoyed and after this incident he was much less trusting of us in most things. This type of incident was frequent, however, so it passed without too much hurly-burly, though I did feel a sense of guilt immediately after it took place. Most of that guilt was drowned out by cider and a sense of adrenaline or excitement and we continue even to this day to plot against the uptight rules of my grandparent's house.
ReplyDeleteUpon asking my mother for inspiration in writing this blogpost, I almost instantly witnessed a facial expression surface. One so terrifying, it is rarely seen on the face of a human being. This was immediately followed by the accusation of being a serial-unapologetic-predatative-theif of my family's clothing. It is true, I have a serious problem: My mother is my size, height, and just so happens to dress like a fifteen year old (she claims sixteen.) Due to this unfortunate coincidence, I am often pictured, while on vacation with friends, in her clothing. And, most mornings, once I have left for school, when my mother wanders upstairs to lounge around in luxury, she will find that the doors of her closet have suspiciously been left open. Although my alleged criminal career would be a terrific subject for this blog post, it would be dishonest due to the fact that there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that I have once stolen my mother's clothing. And I never lie.
ReplyDeleteAs seems to be common in several of these stories so far, I was around 8 when I wanted something so desperately that I pursued it in secret, and--this also seems to be common--in hindsight, I realize it really wasn't that important. There was a cardinal rule in my household in third grade; no television after eight on school nights. My mother made sure I was well aware of this rule. But there was a show so spectacular, so incredible and well-written that would be premiering on the Disney Channel, whose shows are the epitome of dramatic screenwriting, comedy, and heart wrenching plot lines, at 8:30. I believe it had something to do with Hannah Montana, an example of T.V. at it's absolute best. I had to watch it. I casually broached the subject with my mother, whose response was a firm NO. This dampened my spirits, but not for long. I quickly formulated a plan to sneak down to my basement and watch the show on the T.V. down there, and I almost got away with it, but 15 minutes into the show my mother happened to require some scissors, and happened to wander into the basement looking for them, and happened to find me watching the forbidden show. She unplugged the television and told me to go to my room.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I used to play flute and every couple months we had recitals. I absolutely HATED with a passion performing in recitals; I always got so nervous and messed up on my piece, even if I had perfected it in my lessons. Every time recitals came up I tried desperately to get out of it but it never worked. So, one time, I had prepared a plan to gradually pretend to get sick right before the recital, not the day before, but a few days ahead so it wouldn't be suspicious. I went through with my plan and in the end I wasn't forced to play in the recital. I think my parents might have known what I was doing but had decided to let me skip this one recital. I didn't feel much guilt at first because I really did despise performing until I had my next flute lesson. My teacher was telling me how much I was missed, how it was such a shame that I was sick because we worked really hard on the Beatles duet. That's when I felt like I had let not only my parents but also my teacher down.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, I always wanted to be just like my brother. I dressed the way he did, I played whatever he played, and did whatever he did. Most of all however, I wished I had the same toys as him. Like most small children though, my brother wasn’t the best at sharing. No matter how much I pouted and whined I still wanted the toys that he played with. After a while I finally decided I would get the toys I wanted. I knew he wouldn’t just give them to me, and I knew if I stole a lot at once he would notice, so thus spawned my genius plan. For months everyday I would take a small toy from my brother and stock pile them in my room. My plan worked perfectly in the end I had numerous toys and my brother never found out, to this day I don’t think he knows I stole his toys. Even though it is not as drastic as shown in Macbeth that was my indirect way to get what I wanted.
ReplyDeleteI think it was in fifth grade, when I "borrowed" a book from my sister. It was one of the Percy Jackson books, I forget which one it was, but I know it was one later in the series. I had read all the books leading up to it and I really wanted to read it. Now, I could have just asked my sister if I could read the book after she was done with it, but there were rules. It was a popular thing at my old school to impose rules upon the lending of books. The most common restriction was that people who had borrowed a book from someone else could not lend the book to another person. That is, unless a chain of lending had been set up with the owner beforehand. Chains of lending were rare, and most often the book just went back to the owner until someone else asked for it. I was shy, so asking for the book was out of the question, plus the book owner was in a different class. I hardly really knew anybody outside of my class. So when my sister was staying after-school for swimming, I snuck into her room and borrowed the book. This went on for about a week until I was finished or she returned it. I don't think she ever really noticed.
ReplyDeleteI have always been the kid of child who is afraid of conflict, (with anyone except my brother, of course). So I never really took something without asking my parents first. But recently I have had a problem with staying up late while on the internet when my mom told me to go to bed. And then a few months ago, when the Mark of Athena came out, (some of you might have noticed me reading it), I spent at least 3 - 4 hours reading when I got home. The problem with this was that I needed to study for my history test the next day. At about 7 my mom came in and said, "Your still reading?" "Yessss," I said sheepishly. "It's sooooo good!" She gave me a look and said, "Well put it down or you are not going to pass your test." I nodded my head and slowly closed the book with a huge sigh.
ReplyDeleteI first discovered the Harry Potter books when I was in kindergarden. Within a year, I had finished the first four, totally out of order. Since those were the only ones we owned, when it came time to read Order of the Phoenix, I realized I had to get it somewhere else. None of my friends were interested in it yet, and I didn't exactly have any extra cash lying around to buy it. So I asked my mom to get it from the library, but she refused, claiming she had heard the later books were more "adult." So, I decided instead to borrow it from the school library as soon as school started. I had only read the first chapter when my ingenious hiding place of the middle of the floor was found. My mother is not one to discourage reading, so she relented, but I have never truly forgiven her for those few months I lost, during which my cousin told me about Sirius and Dumbledore.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were kids, my brother and I were "addicted" to toy cars. We would save up our allowance and spend our money on cars whenever our mom took us shopping. For us, cars were like money: we always wanted more, losing cars is really bad, and whoever has the most cars is the dominant child. I, being 2 years younger than him, had a smaller collection. I always envied his massive box full of cars. He always seemed to have the fastest, coolest, best cars in his collection. One day, while he was out of the house, I wandered into his room. I pulled his box of cars out and filled my pockets with my (and most likely his) favorites. I brought them back to my room, where I spent the day admiring their details and racing them on my track. However, I realized he might look at my box of cars and see some of his. I gathered up his cars and placed them in an empty drawer in my desk. Unfortunately, when he returned, he quickly found that his box was considerably less full. He got angry and assumed I had stolen them. However, since I had stashed them in my drawer, he couldn't prove it was me. My heist was successful! I started feeling bad the next day though. I usually put my favorite cars on my shelf, but I had to keep my new cars in a drawer to ensure their safety. Neither of us could play with them because I had to store them in my desk. Finally, I decided to give them back. He was really upset, and he made me give him some of my cars (or else he would've "told" on me). It really didn't work out too well: neither of us got to use the cars when I had them, and I lost some of my own cars as a result.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 6, my friend and I loved Yu-Gi-Oh. My parents didn't support my passion Yu-Gi-Oh so they wouldn't let me buy the cards. I would start to buy them from my friend, who had hundreds, if not thousands of cards. When we went to the store I would bring my money and spend it on cards, bragging to my friend if I got a better card than he had. After a while, I ran out of money and whenever I went over to my friends house, I would go through his cards and take the best ones out of his deck. He never found out because of the sheer amount of his cards. I never gave back his cards, even after I convinced my parents to let me buy my own cards. Soon after I was allowed to buy the cards I lost interest in Yu-Gi-Oh all together.
ReplyDeleteSeveral times when I was younger, I would often sneak into the kitchen while my mom was cooking dinner to get chocolate, which was something I often craved. I would casually walk past her pretending to say hello, or walk by the kitchen while doing a chore. Each time she regarded me, but was focused on her cooking, so she wasn’t watching or following me closely. Then I would casually grab fistfuls of chocolate and stuff them into my jacket, mutter a quick goodbye and skip happily back to my room. Sometimes, I would get caught, but there was this one particular time where she yelled at me for a good amount of time and was frustrated with me. I felt very guilty and was careful to ask her for things from then on.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I had a giant sweet tooth. I would do anything for just one bite of a piece of something sweet; even go against my parents say. When I was about ten or eleven, my mom’s office was given ten boxes full of packets of gummies to give out at their upcoming race. My mom brought them to our house to store in the garage because the office had no storage for the many boxes. Every day as I got home, I would see the boxes staring me down, and I knew I had a mission I had to complete. One day after school, my mom pulled into the garage and she and my brother went inside; I knew that that might be my only opportunity to grab the snack I had been craving. So, I told my mom I forgot something in the car and had to grab it. She went inside expecting me to get what I needed and come inside, but I had another idea. I slowly and quietly opened one of the boxes and grabbed a packet of gummies, then snuck them into my backpack and headed inside. As I went to my room, I began to eat my treat; to my surprise they tasted horrible! As I fell in defeat of my mission, I soon realized that I had not thought through my plan: my mom would have to notice the open box when bringing them to her race! In the end I was punished for my actions and was treat-less for another month. Since then, I have lost most of my sweet tooth, but will still go for a cup of ice cream after a hot summer day.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in third grade and they still sold soda at the pizza sale I got a soda with my lunch as usual. That night for some special occasion my mom asked me if I wanted to have a soda with my dinner. Right before I was going to open the soda my mom questioned, “Didn't you already have a soda at lunch?” I said no back and then the lie began. So she asked me where my extra 50 cents went. I then went on saying that I had my 2 quarters from last week and reed had given me 2 quarters. But my mom remembered that I had gotten a soda the week before too. I then went on a huge tangent and ended up with reed giving me 2 quarter again. By this time the lie was completely unbelievable and it became the story of reed giving me 2 quarters. To this day my brothers still tease me about it.
ReplyDeleteA couple of weeks ago, my mom brought home some hershey kisses and recees cups from CVS. We don't usually have candy lying around in the house so it was a treat. Now, there were only so much and my brother and I both loved them. Thus started a silent war for who was getting to eat the most kisses. I remember grabbing handfuls of the candy and sneaking them up to my room and just stashing them there were my brother couldn't find it. These battles caused tension which eventually led to fighting. After a couple of days, however, we ran out and all was back to normal.
ReplyDeleteOnce, my friends and I were walking to Yoforia to get frozen yogurt. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, because we all decided we wanted some. The problem was my friend's little sister. We knew that if she saw us leaving, she would want to come too. None of us wanted her to come, because she is a pain to take care of and we knew she would probably pitch a fit about something along the way. We walked really quickly as we passed her house. When we heard her sister coming outside, we turned the corner at the end of the street quickly so she wouldn't see us. We made it to Yoforia without her. I felt kind of bad for avoiding her, even though she was annoying. However, we got our yogurt in peace. I know that if she had found out, she would have been mad at us for leaving her. But we never told and she never found out.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in fifth grade, I found that there were only a few material possessions I could not obtain that I wanted. On of which was a pair of neon red converse allstar shoes. In those days, the "cool" thing to have ws not special clothes, since I went to a Catholic school, and everybody looked the same, but once we left school grounds, you could wear whatever you want. These shoes that I wanted had special indentations around each letter, and even the shoelaces stood out like the reflectors on a bike, alerting everyone of your presence. At this particular moment, it was time to pick buy another pair of shoes, and I thought it would be the perfect time to ask him. The only problem woth this is that, as you would remember, this was on the short list of items my father would never buy me. He thought of them as tacky, and to a lesser extent, useless. To get around this, like any ten yearold, I simply asked my mom if she would allow me to buy a certain pair of shoes, without naming specifics. This tactic of leaving out crucial pieces to a puzzle would only last a short time, but since there isn't anything technically wrong, I saw no problem to it. After buying these bright neon blue shoes, I wore them every day for a month, secretly in between class. As I wore them though, I began to realize that they strained on my feet, and caused me to get red bruises on top of the talices of my foot. I realized there may have been other reasons for me not being sloud to wear these almost clown like shoes, but found myself too far in to back out now. These bruises became infected eventually, and when my parents found out the cause was the shoes I wore, they threw them away. To me, this seems like a fair deal, given that all along, the shoes I wanted so badly were giving me infections through the sores they caused. Because of my secrecy though, I am left with scars of past harm detrimental to my health, yet at the same time beneficial to how I felt. My parents though, already knew I was wearing the shoes, but felt bad that I did not tell them of their hidden pains.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in 8th grade, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to Decatur high or not. He gave me reasons such as closer commute, and lower tuition. Back then it had only been a year since I moved to Paideia so I still had mixed feelings about it. As time passed by I started to make friends with some Decatur kids and started to like my dad's idea. When I asked my dad if I could go to Decatur high, he indirectly told me "no". He said that the tuition, distance, and the other struggle is worth it in my future. I argued back but he told me to come back with reasons why I wanted to go to Paideia written down on paper. I'm interested in going to Decatur high but I don't think I know enough about the school to make such a big decision. But in the end I'm still very happy with Paideia.
ReplyDeleteThere are too many instances of me being sneaky, mischievous, cheeky, or whatever. Of course I've never done anything really bad like stolen from a store, but I've schemed to get more than my fair share of things. The most interesting that comes to mind story wise is how I covertly infiltrated a "faction" in a game I used to play called Evocraft. I was sort of known on the server for raiding people's bases and taking their stuff. Sometimes I would use explosions, sometimes I would be a sneeky bastard. One day two summers ago I tricked a guy into giving me the location of his base, walked over there, and pretty much made friends with the guy and his two buddies. This literally was a multi-hour process, I would show them abilities I could do and compliment them on their base. They would have considered me a "bro." They eventually decided to let me into their base and show me how the defenses and stuff worked. While inspecting their walls I pretended to see someone in the distance, I went off after him and pretended he got away. I told them to make sure their defenses were good tonight because he was probably a raider. That night I log back on (I logged off in their base) go to their vault, and take weeks worth of stuff. The next morning they say their stuff is gone and ask me if I stole it. "Psh, I would never steal from y'all. Must have been that raider I saw last night." I'm going full nerd here and admitting the thrill was intense. They could have easily put two and two together to find out I just wanted their stuff and killed me, but in the end I got all their stuff and all was well.
ReplyDeleteOne instance that I clearly recall was at the end of 4th grade. I really wanted a Mac laptop: I wanted to create music in GarageBand, movies in iMovie, and more. However, my parents said they would not buy me one; I would have to raise the money on my own. Once they gave me this choice, they were overtly certain that I would not be able to raise the money. A 4th grader raising $1,000? That was impossible. I, however, was not discouraged. I thought about ways I could raise the money. Babysitting? No. Tech help? No. Hmm...how about preparing lunches for kids at school and bringing them in so parents wouldn't have to worry about making lunches? I thought about the plan more and more and finally decided to present it to my parents. They were very impressed - after all, they'd thought there was no way I'd be able to raise the money. We refined the plan a bit, and the idea soon became a reality. My whole family helped: my mom helped with the overall organization and finances, my dad helped me create a computer database, and my siblings and I prepared the meals. Sure enough, a few months later, I'd raised enough money for the computer!
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I really liked bubblegum (I guess I still do now,) and on occasion, my mom would buy me huge 1 lb packs of bubblegum. One time, I finished up a bag of bubblegum sooner than my parents would have liked for me to, and I wanted my mom to give me more. I knew that she would be angry at me if I asked for more because she would realize that I had been eating about fifteen pieces of bubblegum per day. So I went to my sister, who always listens to me, and my mom always listens to her, and I asked her to ask our mom if she could have a bag of bubblegum. Of course, once my mom would give it to her, I would take it for myself. Unfortunately, my mom got suspicious when my sister, who didn't like gum, asked for gum. She discovered my plan, and I wasn't allowed to have any gum for a month.
ReplyDelete