Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 10: That Means It's Horrible

What do you do during school breaks? Hopefully not find a way to do more school work. But that's what I did during the December break at the end of Grade 8. I had no books for Grade 9 so I couldn't do anything pre-reading for the upcoming material, but I still wanted to be studying or doing something related to school work. And I had just the idea.

My English teacher told us about the Commonwealth Writing Competition. "Just see if it's something you're interested in" she said, as she handed us the brochures. The due date for submission was somewhere in May the following year, I believe, but I had already made up my mind to work on it during the break.

My plan was to come up with something compelling that had to do with teenage pregnancy, and as soon as the holiday started, I went to work. I spent the earlier days doing research on all things related to teenage pregnancy. I noted down statistics and figures. I wrote down all the facts and the stories of people who have been affected by teenage pregnancy. Then I read up on all the different ways to "write creatively," How to formulate metaphors and similes, to how to "show and not tell." Finally, I started writing.

I don't really know why I thought it would be a good idea, or how I didn't see it was going to end up being a confusing mess, but I decided that for my piece, I was going to be telling a short story while at the same time giving out a bunch of facts and statistics about teenage pregnancy. I would start my piece with the introduction of a short story about someone who had to go through the rough side of teenage pregnancy, then the second paragraph of my piece was going to be some facts, then the third paragraph would go back to the story, and the fourth would once again have some statistics and figures, and that's what the trend would be throughout my piece.

Now, I was doing the most for this piece. I spent hours looking for fancy synonyms to words, and finding different ways to describe just how the "baby's eyes glistened when her mother stared into them." I made sure to look up the difference between "according to studies" and "research has shown," you know, because I just had to know which is the whack one to avoid.

And when I finished the initial draft, I read through the piece again, looked for even fancier synonyms and added more "detail" (aka fancy words I didn't really understand) into my descriptions. Then on my final draft I patted myself on the back saying, "This sounds brilliant. The fruit of hard work!"

Usually, on the first day of school, there will be too many administrative things going on for class to start. But I couldn't wait to show my masterpiece. So on the very first day of school, I found my grade-8 English teacher and handed her the next Pulitzer prize winner.

I gave her that entire day to read the piece, because, you know, masterpieces take a while to be soaked in. Then the next day, as soon as, my feet touched the school's pavement, I started darting my eyes around to see if I could spot her. I had butterflies in my stomach and I was already practicing how I would respond to all the compliments. I finally met her while walking up the stairs to my first class, "Morning ma'am. Did you read my piece?" And I was already waiting to hear her high-pitched voice tell me how fantastic it was. But she only replied with, "Um... Yeah..."

What was that supposed to mean?

"What did you think about it?" I asked.

"Um...It was...good..." And my heart sank.

I knew it. I knew that response as soon as she said it. It meant only one thing: My article was horrible!

The words she spoke next just proved my fear, "What is exactly? Is it like a narrative? A description? An argumentative essay?"

I was still recovering from the shock and embarrassment of discovering my masterpiece was absolute trash, so it took me a few seconds to respond with, "Kind of a mixture of both. I'll try to edit it a little." And I walked away as fast as I could to my class where I could cover my face in shame.

I never asked her about that piece again, and I no, I didn't "edit it a little." I just deleted it from my computer as soon as I could, tore up the printed copies, and never looked at it again.