More of Emily's writing

I told you about Emily and her constitution that she did for NOVA and how she was chosen to read it at their graduation.  I found it in her file and thought I would share it.  I guess they liked it because it was so much different then the normal ones of "I learned this and I won't do that and we learned not to..." kind of thing.  I was (as I am sure any parent would be) very proud of her.   Below is her work.  You can read about her metaphor paper here.

A road map shows you how to get somewhere.  The place can be good or bad.  There are usually places where you might turn the wrong way, either by accident, or by not paying attention.  Life is a road map. You are constantly driving. There are two different roadmaps you can choose from.  You can choose the roadmap to bad habits, or you can choose the roadmap to excellence.  If you choose the roadmap to excellence, your goal will then be to get to excellence city.

            Some of the roads that I wish to go down on the roadmap to excellence are college lane, Job Avenue, and last but not least, highway smartness.  There are many different roads to go down, and they will all take you to different places. For example, if you go down college lane, there are hundreds and hundreds of roads branching off of it like doctor drive, Teacher Boulevard, and lawyer lane. Each of these will take you to good places, unless you don’t use the knowledge that you gain down these roads.

            I personally would like to go to college.  To get to college lane, you first start out at Birth Boulevard.  Now continue on to preschool road, elementary lane, middle school Avenue, high school drive, and the rest is self explanatory.  But I am going to let you in on a little secret, I have a shortcut.  My shortcuts is start out on Birth Boulevard as usual, but drive your very best through elementary lane, middle school avenue, and high school drive, and if you do your very best, you might just get a ticket. Not tickets were you have to pay a fine or anything, but a ticket called a scholarship.  These are like trucks. If college lane gets bumpy or hard with payment, a truck makes it smoother and easier to pull through and do a good job on what will change your life. 

            Job Avenue is easy to get to.   All you do is once you get off of high school drive, is you take a sharp right turn onto Job Avenue and your there.  There are tons of turnoff roads to choose from.  You might want to chose McDonalds way, or maybe you would prefer something where you are more free, or where the road is wider. Like artist avenue.  More than half the roads will be locked though unless you took the detour on college lane.  Yes this will take you longer, but if you go this way, all the doors will be open.  This way, you will have a higher chance of getting to excellence city.

            Highway smartness is a highway that is long, wide and strait in one direction.  Across the valley of excellence, there is another highway called the highway of decreasing smartness.   Joining the two highways is a road called sameness path.  The highway smartness takes you towards the city of excellence.  Highway of decreasing smartness takes you toward Birth Boulevard.  I would like to stay in school so that I can continue on highway of smartness till I get to the city of excellence.  

            When you are driving a car, you need to avoid things.  Pretend you are halfway down 28 avenue and you see that the road splits in two.  One way says “smoke”, and the other way says “drug free”.  Which one will you choose? Now say that you are driving in your car, and then you see a speed bump. You then decide to slow down. Now let’s pretend that you went super fast over it so that you could fly in the air, even though it would only be for a couple seconds. If you were driving in a convertible with your seatbelt off, you would most likely fly out of the car and die or hurt yourself.  Always remember to Study the Situation, or STS.

            If your car doesn’t have an engine, how can you drive? If you don’t know how to drive, how can you drive?  If your car doesn’t have a steering wheel, how can you control the car?   There are obviously things you need and should value for cars.  There are also things you should value in life. If you didn’t have a roadmap, how would know where to go or what to do.  If you didn’t have a car, how could you get past Birth Boulevard? A couple of things I value are knowing whats right and whats wrong, my car/brain, and my roadmap/life.

            Back to the roadmap stuff.  If you are heading towards excellence city, you are on the path of excellence. NOVA has helped lead me to my path of excellence by letting me know how dangerous drug usage is, how to be a better person, and to be able to REALLY know whats around me besisdes flowers and unicorns.

            During NOVA, they had about eight different topics, which were gangs, internet safety, music awareness, media, self-esteem, true colors, windows of opportunity, and heroes. Gangs was about why a gang is harmful.  Internet safety was about making sure that while your on the internet you are safe.  Music awareness basically said that there is bad music, and good music.  Media was on making sure the media that you were around was appropriate.  Self esteem was on paradigm and put downs.  The lesson on true colors taught us that what is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong.  Windows of opurtunity was all about cause and effect, STS, accountability, and how to get good opportunitys.  The lesson on heroes helped us to realize, what a hero was and how to be one.  All of these lessons were important and I will remember them for ever.