Seaside Serenity I remember as I first arrived at the beach, smelling the salty ocean air filling my lungs. I take a deep breath to savor the smell. I smell the aroma of sunscreen as it protects my skin against the sun’s warm embrace. The unmistakable smell of salt and fresh air is La Jolla Beach. My safe space, my sanctuary, my heaven. I remember sinking into the soft, warm sand surrounding me as it molded my figure, connecting me with the earth that lies beneath. I feel tickling rays of sunshine on my skin. As I open my book and begin to turn the pages, I feel its texture. I read as the words practically hop off the page and create a picture in front of me of its telling plot. The world around me fades as I envision the setting and characters of …show more content…
Around this time, I began my first semester at the University of San Diego. While I loved everything about my university—the location, the people, and the overall ambiance of the space—it was a lot of work! Being a freshman in my first semester, it took some time getting used to the workload. With the university being private and the classroom spaces being so small, they were particularly strict on schoolwork. That being said, there was a lot of it! So as students, my friend group and I often took beach trips to La Jolla to escape the stressors our school gave us. With this, being in a new space led me to many new hobbies. One of which included reading. In high school, I wasn’t very fond of it, as I felt I did enough of it in class. But in college, I began to learn the pleasures of reading and literature. After going to the beach nearly every weekend, I began bringing along a book with me and it soon became a routine. There, I was able to clear my mind of all my worries, really connect with what I was reading, and connect with the nature surrounding me at the same time. Doing this also made reading enjoyable for me and allowed me to create a relationship with literature and what it has to offer that I
Each year as I grow old, I tend to discover and learn new things about myself as a person as well as a reader, writer and a student as a whole. My educational journey so far has been pretty interesting and full of surprises. Back in Bangladesh where I studied until high school, my interest for learning, reading or writing was so very different compared to how it has become over the years. I could relate those learning days to Richard Rodriquez’s essay “The lonely Good Company of Books”. In the essay the author says, “Friends? Reading was, at best, only a chore.”(Rodriguez, page 294). During those days I sure did feel like reading was a chore for me and how I was unable to focus and I could never understand what all those jumbled up words ever meant. It was quite a struggle for me in class when the teachers used to assign us reading homework. I felt like reading a book was more difficult or painful than trying to move a mountain. Just like how moving a mountain is impossible, trying to find an interest in reading was
I began to read not out of entertainment but out of curiosity, for in each new book I discovered an element of real life. It is possible that I will learn more about society through literature than I ever will through personal experience. Having lived a safe, relatively sheltered life for only seventeen years, I don’t have much to offer in regards to worldly wisdom. Reading has opened doors to situations I will never encounter myself, giving me a better understanding of others and their situations. Through books, I’ve escaped from slavery, been tried for murder, and lived through the Cambodian genocide. I’ve been an immigrant, permanently disabled, and faced World War II death camps. Without books, I would be a significantly more close-minded person. My perception of the world has been more significantly impacted by the experiences I've gained through literature than those I've gained
The smell of the restaurants faded and the new, refreshing aroma of the sea salt in the air took over. The sun’s warmth on my skin and the constant breeze was a familiar feeling that I loved every single time we came to the beach. I remember the first time we came to the beach. I was only nine years old. The white sand amazed me because it looked like a wavy blanket of snow, but was misleading because it was scorching hot. The water shone green like an emerald, it was content. By this I mean that the waves were weak enough to stand through as they rushed over me. There was no sense of fear of being drug out to sea like a shipwrecked sailor. Knowing all this now I knew exactly how to approach the beach. Wear my sandals as long as I could and lay spread out my towel without hesitation. Then I’d jump in the water to coat myself in a moist protective layer before returning to my now slightly less hot towel. In the water it was a completely different world. While trying to avoid the occasional passing jellyfish, it was an experience of
The first thing I heard was Virginia Beach vacation, and then in excitement I ran and got my stuff and started to pack. The part I was most excited about was that the hotel is a beachfront hotel room.I was so excited because I love the beach and I really wanted to go back to the beachfront hotel and stay there. I went there when I was in second grade. I have gotten to go there a few times since second grade, but I did not get to stay there overnight.
The idea of literature being an important aspect of life has always been greatly prevalent in my upbringing. This notion that I supported was spurred on at the cause of my obstinate parents insisting upon my reading of two books a week to benefit my vocabulary and to develop the articulate thought process of a skilled reader. As a young child, my biggest influences were my parents’ passionate and persuasive ideas regarding the correlation between
My dad taught me that books could be my teachers, my mom taught me that our backyard could be my classroom, and my sister showed me that you could bring books into the swimming pool. I did not know it when I would spend hours in the pool reading a book that my parents weren’t encouraging it in vain, but my family life, for good reason, was centered on books. We were the planets orbiting around one sun that was the bookshelf. Little did I know that books would be the catalyst to academic success in my early life, and I owe it all to my family. Although a life with a book in your nose might seem boring, I was never bored. Living through the characters vicariously, I explored Narnia with Lucy, attended Hogwarts with Harry, and rode dragons with Eragon. Of course
I read voraciously as a child. I grew up in a college town and spent my summers in Middlebury, Vt, where my father taught summer school. That meant I was surrounded by libraries and by people who love to read and discuss literature. During the Vermont summers, one of my favorite places was Middlebury College's rare books room where I read first-edition Louisa May Alcott novels.
Sometimes some places leave everlasting impressions on your mind, and you never forget the experienced that you have enjoyed there. I had that kind of experience. I visited Hollywood that has become a landmark of American culture. Hollywood is a range situated toward the west and northwest of downtown Los Angeles, California. All through history, Hollywood has been the home of film stars and motion picture studios. When you think about the focal point of the American stimulation industry, you consider Hollywood.
The sand rushed between my toes massaging my feet with every step. The breeze kissed my cheeks like a child’s first kiss; and the sun warmed my skin like a baby in its mother’s womb. I placed a reclining beach chair underneath a palm tree to block the rays of the radiant sun. I tilted the seat, laid my head back, closed my eyes, and let my ears soak up the sounds that surrounded me: waves crashing on the shore, seagulls squawking, children running and playing, and distant conversation of people that bordered me. After relaxing and enjoying my surroundings, I plunged into the oceans salt water and was amazed of its clarity.
Silvery pale hair whipped around her face, kept flowing by the offshore wind that came in through the front where the rest of the plane used to be and then funneled out through numerous small holes in the walls of the plane around her. Clean and pure with the rich salt and iodine smell of the open ocean, the wind carried none of the stink of aviation fuel or fire or ozone from electrical shorts that had filled her nose with their fumes and brought clenching terror to Asta's soul when the accident happened. Even now she could hear the screams of the other passengers, the terrible this way and that tumbling and screeching of tearing metal and breaking plastics as the plane just came apart on the surface of the ocean. That had been almost comforting
As a writer, I struggled my first semester, which took a huge toll on my excitement for both English and writing. Although, I came to realize that with a little help, proofreading, and editing (several times), I was able to generate a well-written essay or at best an average one. Regardless of my poor start, I continued to appreciate my love of English language arts courses. I was blown away by all the juicy classical literature and landmark poems I was able to read and comprehend. I loved all of my classes in college, and I honestly enjoyed the readings! There is so much that can be learned from examining literature and research. Without having read and wrote countless assignments about various topics, novels, poems, and more, I do not believe I would still be motivated to become a high school English teacher and literature professor. My love of reading is a love that I hope will be contagious enough for my future students to capture and spread. In the meanwhile, my continuous love of the Brothers Grimm Tales has inspired a concentration in Children’s literature for my second master’s degree, and I am almost positive that I have conjured a snippet of my future dissertation as well from observations in select
Geared up, we stood on the edge of the pier, staring into the water. It had a dark murky color to it, uninviting and almost repulsive. It was 10 pm and the sun had already set. Only the lights of a nearby restaurant reflected off the water’s black surface. The walk to the pier was dangerous.
The sand was so hot. Scorched by the sun. I didn’t know how much more my feet could take. Then came the squishy, dark sand. Almost there.
I watch as buildings turn to ocean, then to hills, then back to buildings. I notice how people wave when the train hurls down the tracks and how perfectly the sun moves from east to west right over the locomotive. Going back and forth from my home where I have sanctuary in my own room to a house where I feel unwelcome was never enjoyable. I have never wished my parents would get back together, I don’t even remember a time when they were together and I would never give up my step dad for anything. But I would dread the trips between both houses and the tensions that build up whenever I get off my train in Oxnard.
Nathan Shie 11/7/2017 Sure, that looks fun Ah, camping! The feeling of waking up to bird calls, looking up to see the rising sun and blue sky, and… and having to use the restroom really really badly in the cold, dry environment. Don’t worry about me, the zipper on my sleeping bag only jammed twice this time, and I only tripped once.