Honorable Mention:

Brittany Anderson Achamboro Aaron Ataande Keith Mannion

Gsbriele Martinez Nicole Speidell Veronica Vasquez

Writing of November: Juniors

First Place: Kathleen-May Lamas

Second Place: Briana Greenidge

Writing of November:

First Place: Superstitions by Navmeet Kaur (Grade 10)

Superstitions. That one word will bring up thousands of stories. Old sayings passed on to generations: some believe in them, while others don’t. The question is, who does?

I don’t believe in superstitions. I think they’re silly stories made for fun. For instance, I’ve opened umbrellas in my house, seven to be exact, and nothing has happened to me. I spilled salt as well, with no result. I haven’t tried the black cat theory yet. But the mirror in my room broke when it fell, and no bad luck for seven years. Superstitions are something fools believe in. They’re something fun to brighten up our lives, in my opinion.

Superstitions are something like myths. They just bring out your imagination. They don’t really happen; it’s your mind playing tricks on you. To me there’s no such thing as bad luck – it’s coincidence. If you actually believe it, then you’re paranoid. For instance, if you walk under a ladder and something happens, does it mean the same thing will happen again? Personally, I’ve done most of things forbidden by superstitions and nothing happened to me. My mother and grandmother believe in superstitions, though. They think having your shoes or slippers turned over is bad, and jingling your keys isn’t good. I’ve done both of those, and no bad luck. I ignore them, because I really don’t believe in them. Another reason might be that no one else in my house, other than my mother and grandmother, takes them seriously.

Superstitions are things to brighten up kids’ minds and keep them in check. Shrug it off when children say "ooh, you’re gonna get bad luck here." Nowadays, people have more important things to worry about instead of little childish stories. To me, superstitions are for the simple-minded. "Only a fool would let words control their life."

Second Place: MySpace by Tamesha Kimble (Grade 10)

I belong to MySpace because it’s my own page. MySpace is a fun website where anyone can

go and meet new people. My cousin Rontasia made my account for me. When I first heard about MySpace, I didn’t want to go on because of all the predators. Now, I love MySpace!

There is a lot you can do on MySpace. I talk to my friends. We usually talk about people’s pages and what cute boys are on the site. It is also a good way for me to keep in touch with my friends and family outside of New York. I like to go to people’s music pages and listen to new artists that are coming out. On MySpace, you can put up to 16 pictures, a top 24, and you can upload any layout. MySpace allows you to put videos up on your page too. I put up two videos of me dancing. They were really funny!

The negative things about MySpace are the predators. Old men and women try to talk to younger individuals. Sometimes, teens lie about their age, so they can’t blame older people for trying to talk to them. People also put up pictures that reveal body parts that they shouldn’t be showing. There are a lot of people who put up too much information and wonder how everyone knows their business. I haven’t had bad experiences with MySpace, but only good experiences.

On MySpace, I set my profile to private so only my friends can see my page. I avoid the dangers of people by accepting only people who aren’t older. I look at people’s top friends list to see what kind of friends they have, and I also look at their whole page to make sure they are respectable. Looking at people’s surveys and picture comments helps me find out what kind of person is trying to be my friend.

MySpace is a safe place as long as you make it safe for yourself. Experiencing MySpace has helped me find friends that moved away. I am happy to be a member of MySpace!

Honorable Mention:

Joseph Cooper Chad Evans James Gonadakis Ivy Green

First Place: MySpace by Will Burkhardt (Grade 9)

I was first introduced to MySpace back in the eighth grade. My sister was really into it, and she said that everybody here at Blessed Sacrament St. Gabriel’s was too, so one day she just put in my information and I had my profile. I never really went on it, because I didn’t know any of my friends had profiles, so I found it pretty pointless to go on. Then one day I was bored and browsing sites at random until I came across it, and in several minutes I had updated my profile, found my friends, and even made new ones. That was the genesis of my MySpace addiction.

Some good points of MySpace are that you can talk to anyone who is on it (maybe a million people?), you can meet new and interesting people, and you can let people know the real you. There really are not many bad points to it, if you’re just smart about it. Yes, it is true that that 15-year-old who’s so dreamy that you think you’ll never wake up could be an obese 37-year-old child molester with AIDs from Kentucky, but unless you give him your home address, age, and phone number or anything like that, he can do nothing but send you little messages.

The experiences that I’ve had on MySpace have been mostly good; I can’t think of any major wrong I’ve had on it. I’ve met new, interesting people whom I’ve become close friends with, I’ve reunited with friends from my past and caught up to them, and I’ve grown closer to the people I care about. There are really few dangers to being a MySpacer. So please, parents who are forbidding and going insane over your child’s MySpace, a word to the wise: MySpace is not corrupting and leeching on your children. If anything, your children hurt and slander MySpace. Because you see, what it all boils down to is that MySpace is like juggling flaming, acid-tipped chainsaws while blindfolded, with prosthetic arms – amazing and super fun if you know what you’re doing, though the consequences for interacting improperly with it can be dire.

Second Place: Do You Belong to MySpace? by Charles Plummer Grade 9)

Yes, I do belong to MySpace. There are plenty of good things about it. You can talk to old friends, view and rate pictures. Family and friends can stay in touch. You can listen to new music, which I’m a big fan of. You can post comments, blogs, videos, advertisements, and more. It’s basically one of the new and better ways of communicating. There is so much to do on there, I’d have to say almost everyone I know, including some adults, belong to MySpace.

There are some negative stories about how some kids have gotten raped, killed, etc. The only reason those things happened was because MySpace wasn’t as safe and secure back then as it is now. Now, you can choose who your friends are, keep certain pages private, and control who views your profile and its contents. A big reason why those people got harmed was because they decided to talk to people they didn’t know, and got concerned in business that wasn’t theirs.

I’ve had plenty of good experiences on MySpace. There was one time when I had moved and lost all contact with my friends. When I was around 13 years old I got a MySpace; not even a month went by before I found that my old friends had MySpaces too. So I added them, and we all started talking again. It was like a mini-reunion. Now I’m always in touch with them and we talk over the Internet every day, thanks to MySpace.

I avoid dangers by not adding people I don’t know, or making any conversation with them. If other people think MySpace is bad or a bother, then that’s their problem. It’s helped me in so many ways, and I’m glad I belong to MySpace.

Third Place: A Rock on a Beach by Blessing Eke (Grade 12)

It’s not easy being a rock on a beach. Today starts out with a bang. I wake up to see the pudgy fingers of a little kid drop me into a pail with seashells and other rocks and shiny ornaments. As the human being walks, I collide with the things surrounding me in the pail. When the being stops, I feel myself falling until I hit the rough hot sand with a heavy thud. I then become a cushion for two other rocks that fall right on top of me.

As I look up, I see the most magical thing – a castle made entirely out of sand. One by one, we are put on top of the masterpiece and then photographed. When the being is done photographing his creation, he walks away with the pail in search of other goodies lying in the sand. After two minutes of being on top of the warm sand creation, I feel a soft substance on me, and then hear a piercing scream.

A hand grabs whatever came in contact with me and holds it tight. It seems as if the substance and the hand holding it are bouncing up and down. I lift my head to get a closer look, and see that a much older human being has somehow stubbed his toe on me. He is holding the toe, limping on one foot, and screaming as if being attacked by a pair of wolves. After calming down, he reaches for me. I feel another hand grab me. This time the fingers are harder, rougher, and more masculine, with a lot of hair around the knuckles. I feel a tight grip, then the wind all around me. For a few seconds I am sailing in midair, then I land on water. Surprisingly, I don’t drown. Instead, I’m skidding on the water, which feels good against the spot where the hot sand burned my surface.

When I get to a stop, I begin to sink. On my way down, I hit something soft and wavy. It looks somewhat like soft and curly brown seaweed. Suddenly I’m thrust upward and land back on the very spot where I first woke up. As I turn around, I see a woman rubbing her head. "Oh well," I say to myself as I fall asleep, tired from today’s expeditions.