Siddhartha comes to america

The minutes are passing so slow as I wait for Siddhartha to pull up to my house. He doesn’t know it yet but I have two exciting places I want to take him. The first place I want to take him it very thrilling, I want to take him to six flags, after six flags I want to take him to a place to be calm and meditate. I want to take him to Ogunquit beach in Maine. He finally pulls up to my house and I wait to greet him.

I take Siddhartha into my house so he can drop off his luggage. I was amazed at how little he had. I wanted to waste no time. I told him I was taking to him to six flags, he looked confused, and he told me he had never heard of that place before. I told him not to worry he will love it. Siddhartha wanted to eat before we left but I told him to wait because there is plenty of delicious food where we are going. I was relieved because I know at times Siddhartha would fast back at home. I was very anxious the whole ride there, the 20 minute car ride seemed like it was two hours. I turn to Siddhartha and say, “doesn’t it seem like we have been in this car forever.” He looks back at and says “no we have only been in the car for 20 minutes.” As we get closer I am dying to get out of the car I can barely sit in my seat. As we pull up to the parking lot I see Siddhartha’s eyes widen with amazement as he looks at all of the rollercoaster’s. He has never seen anything like this before back in India, they don’t have anything like six flags. Now I think he realizes why I was so anxious the whole ride here. When we get into the park I tell him what rides we are going on first. First ride we are going on is the batman because that’s my favorite one; next we would go on superman so he can really get scared. Thirdly was the mind eraser. After we went on those rides I let him choose which ones we would go on next. Siddhartha remembers that he was hungry earlier and was distracted by all of the fun, so now its time to eat. There was such a wide selection, chicken tenders, pizza, fried dough, pulled pork and so much more. He decided to have pizza, and now it is his new favorite food. As it gets dark out we begin to get tired to we decide to head on home. The whole way home we went on and on about how much he loved it here. I was glad I chose this place for Siddhartha. We go home and get some rest because we’ve a busy day ahead of us.

The next morning Siddhartha and I get up very early because it takes about 3 hours to get to our destination. I don’t tell him where we are going because I wanted to surprise him. As we get closer I begin to smell the salt water in the air, that’s my favorite smell. I packed us a sheet to sit on and a few sandwiches for lunch. As we are pulling into the parking lot I look at Siddhartha and tell him where we are. He looks happy, I told him today would be a calm day and good time for him to meditate. We unpack the car and begin to walk toward the beach, I look out and all you can see sand and water for miles, it’s beautiful. Siddhartha says this kind of reminds him of India because there is a lot of dirt, and it’s very hot. Siddhartha and I set up our blanket, he begins to meditate. I sit there with him and close my eyes; the sound of the waves crashing on the shore is very calming. As hours go by we begin to get very hot, I tell Siddhartha its time to go in the freezing water, and it’s so cold it hurts your skin. Siddhartha says “I dislike going into cold water” I said “Don’t worry after a while you won’t even be able to feel it” he looked at me with fear. We are getting closer to the shore line and the air begins to get cooler. Siddhartha looks at me and says “I am not cold anymore, I don’t need to go into the water” I look back at Siddhartha and say “Will you please come in the water in with me, and you can’t go to the beach and not go in the water, that’s crazy.” I talked him into it and we finally get into the water. Siddhartha and I had a very relaxing day together, it was nice. I am happy I choose this place to take him to.

I hope Siddhartha had a great time here in America with me, although he had a great time at the amusement park I think the beach was more his style of living. When he is home in India everyone is very calm all of the time, and I don’t think he felt that when he was at the park. Although he may not have been comfortable at this place I believe that it was good to be able to experience something very different than what he is used to. When we went to the beach I could tell he seemed happier and in a way relieved, I think he was happy because he was able to meditate in a quiet place. Siddhartha's flight leaves at 12 a.m, I am sad that hes leaving but we had a great time together and I hope we can do this again in the future.

Lennie goes to Texas

Friday Night Lights, Booby Miles. Of Mice and Men, Lennie Smalls
Setting, Odessa TX



In the town of Odessa TX football is their number one sport and they take it very seriously. Football tryouts for the panthers had finally come; with months of training all the players are confident they will make it. The best player on the team, Booby Miles has automatically made the team because he won the winning touch down last season. When picking their players on the team they are very specific. A man named Lennie smalls stood out to the coaches, this was unusual because he is mentally retarded but they put that to the side because the size of him amazed the coaches. Lennie Smalls moved to Odessa TX from the Salinas valley of California, Lennie was influenced by his friend George to try out for the panthers. George thought this would be a good sport for Lennie because he put his strength to use for once.

Booby Miles was not happy about Lennie making the team; he thought this would jeopardize their season. Although he was not happy about Lennie making the team he was mature and held back making fun of Lennie. He didn’t say any hurtful things but in the locker room he was flaunting to Lennie about how good he was. “Lennie, when I get famous ill come visit you. You better get my autograph now so you can be the first one to have it” Booby Miles said. Lennie being more interested with George and their hopes to having a farm, replies, “Well when I get out of here I will invite you to my farm and you can meet my friend George” The team looking confused to his response put it to the side knowing his disability.

A few practices had gone by and things were going good. Lennie was confused about the plays they had to do but the coaches didn’t mind because he was like a boulder running through the people. Lennie would get handed the ball and when the coaches said run he ran, that was his way of playing football, although it didn’t make much sense to him he was good at it. Lennie began to make friends with his team mates, especially Booby Miles. Booby Miles would really enjoy spending time with Lennie. Booby Miles wanted to get to know Lennie. “Lennie tell me about yourself” Booby Miles said, Lennie replied well I live with my friend George and we work together, we hope to buy a farm together, what about you ?” Football is my life, I live for football it’s my future, and without football I would have no future. Having this sport gives me hope that
I will be O.K in life it gives me the opportunity to get into college.” Booby Miles said.

Games had been going by and they were having a good season, until one unfortunate night. The night of this game the crowd was going wild and coaches were screaming at the team mates. Lennie felt overwhelmed and more confused than usual. It was time to shine, they gave Lennie the ball and told him to run, and he ran fiercely, and went right into Booby Miles. The two players collided; Lennie appeared to be okay he got up and walked off the field. Booby Miles was hurt badly; screaming in pain, and could not walk off the field like Lennie could. He was pulled out of the game for the night. Booby Miles went to the doctor and found out that we tore his ACL; this was a very painful injury and takes a lot of time to heal. Even though his injury was painful we took a great lesson from it. The lesson is that there is more to life then football and he will succeed if he tries. Lennie also learned an important lesson, just because you are different from other people doesn’t make you a bad person is makes you unique. Those are too valuable lesson that people need to take out of life on a day to day basis.