What Makes a Place Special?
There are some places which feel different without certain circumstances. if you visit your high school, you can feel the remaining scent of the feeling of your student days, but you cannot feel the joy and happiness as it was at that time. That doesn't mean the place changed. It is you who changed. After immersed into a different world, you are already dyed with a different color. There is a place which gave me the same lesson.
When I was a middle school student, I suddenly came to move to a different school, which was located near by my original school. When I entered the school, I noticed that there was completely no one I was familiar with. Everybody was a stranger to me. However, other students were not strangers to each other. Everyone already got someone to hang out with. I worried about failing to making any friends there. Obviously, I was not so popular one. Students there showed little interest to me, and then got back to their original groups soon. I felt lonely at that time.
One day, I found a student I hadn't noticed before. He was reading a book, and the title was one of my favorites. I talked to him, and we had a short conversation. The first impression I got from him was that he was very innocent. He seemed to be he was right out from the cradle. Soon I got acquainted with him. We walked together after the school ended. The path we walked through was always same because it always led to the same place. The place where we talked over and over.
That place was basically a playground. The speciality it had was that it was a playground without kids - at least no kids any younger than us. The playground seemed to be completely ours. We talked about many things going around our little world. We talked about books we read, about classes, about exams, about teachers, and about ourselves. There was a little sculpture made out of steel at the middle of the playground, and to us, it seemed like a tower of wisdom under which famous philosophers talk about life. There was a little weather cock at the top of that, and it moved pleasantly as quite breeze tickled our face.
What was really good about that place was that, the ground there was made of many flat stones on which we easily could step. As we walked around there, the flow of our talking corresponded with rhythm of stepping stones. Each time we talked something, our feet moved along with our words and sentences. We moved from one stone to another quickly when we talked fast. We moved slowly when we talked slowly.Therefore, every stones there could be said that it contained every word and idea we talked about. The grass between each stones made the ground much artistic and unique. No one could notice us. That place was a complete isolation. The fence was high, and some trees and thick grasses also made good fence out of themselves. I came home late often because I did not want to leave that place.
As time passed, I went to a high school which located far away from my town. Me and my friend tried to keep in touch, but it was not easy. Eventually, we lost the contact. Despite that, I went to that place several times more. However, I could not feel that original joy of that place. I looked forward to visit that place with him again. As I grew up a bit more, I became an university student. I got more time, so I decided to meet him again. He did not changed a bit. He was still innocent as he was in his middle school days. However, I changed. Unlike him who maintained his original color in a different world, I strayed so much from the road I walked with him when I was younger. I visited that place with him again, but I still couldn't feel the joy. It was like trying to catch a scent with my bare hand. Now that playground is just one of the common places without two 14-year-old boys.
1. What did you like best about this essay? Be as specific as possible.
ReplyDeleteI like how he constantly went back to the playground after time. It seems to describe the time passing.
2. Did the writer describe the place clearly? List any parts that were not clear to you.
Everything was clear.
3. Did the writer appeal to the different sense? List two sensory details that you especially liked.
I liked how he described the surroundings, but there is no other sensory feel. Maybe metal, for touch?
4. How would you describe the mood or the atmosphere of this place?
Slightly sad, nostalgic, longing.
5. Why do you think the writer chose to write about this place?
It is the place that ties him and his friend together.
6. How could the writer improve this essay when he or she revises? Make only one suggestion.
Maybe be more vivid when writing something related to his friend.